Pints With Aquinas - Why Muslims Are Leaving Islam for Christianity (David Wood) | Ep. 550

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

In this interview, Matt sits down with David Wood, an evangelical apologist who focuses his efforts on exposing the truth about Islam. The conversation touches on David's start as an apologist, his friendship with Nabeel Qureshi (who authored the book "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus), what it was like in the early days on YouTube, receiving death threats from Muslims, why Muslims are leaving Islam and becoming Christian, David's journey from atheism to Christianity, and much more. 📚 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Our-Refu... 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors:  👉 College of St. Joseph the Worker:  https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/mat... 👉  Truthly – The Catholic faith at your fingertips: https://www.truthly.ai/ 👉 Hallow – The #1 Catholic prayer app: https://hallow.com/mattfradd  💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook:   / mattfradd   📸 Instagram:   / mattfradd   𝕏 Twitter/X:   / pints_w_aquinas   🎵 TikTok:   / pintswithaquinas   👕 PWA Merch – Wear the Faith! Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com Time Stamps: 00:00:00 – Intro and Matt's new book 00:01:37 – How David became interested in Islam 00:25:17 – David's fight to keep his YouTube channel 00:34:27 – The Muslim response to David's work 00:46:10 – What Christian apologists should NOT do 00:57:50 – Should we say "Islam" or "Mohammedanism"? 01:02:07 – The Islamic dilemma  01:48:50 – Do Muslims have a solution to the Islamic dilemma? 02:07:47 – Was Muhammad a prophet or liar? 02:25:06 – Why David is a Christian 02:40:08 – Does David miss his deceased son? 02:43:05 – Prison time and conversion

Pines with Aquinas is brought to you by Truthly, which is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith. Start your seven-day free trial today when you download Truthly on the app store. Uthman, the third of the rightly guided Caliphs burned all the Qur'ans. So by the time you get to the third of the rightly guided Caliph, so you have Muhammad, then you have Abu Bakr, then you have Umbar, then you have Uthman. By the time you're at Uthman, there are so many differences in the Quran that he has to order. the entire Muslim community to hand over their Qurans. And he burns them all and issues a standardized Quran. Yeah, I often think that we don't give people enough credit

when we are expecting them to change deep-seated beliefs. You know, we say, just convert, just convert to my brand of Christianity or convert to this religion. Islam is the religion of submission to Allah. But the only way you can submit to Allah is by submitting to everything Muhammad says. So, I mean, just imagine that, hey guys, you want to submit to God? Yeah, we want to submit to God.

Okay, then you have to submit to everything I say and you can't question anything I say ever. If I started a religion, I would definitely do that. Hey, everybody. Before we get into today's interview, I want to tell you about my brand new book. It's called Jesus Our Refuge. If you, like many people,

and like all of us, to one degree or another, have been seeking refuge in things other than Jesus Christ and have just found yourself increasingly, weary, then this book is for you. This book is about taking Jesus seriously when he says, come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. It's getting great reviews, and I know it will be a healing balm to your soul. Check it out, Jesus, Our Refuge. You can get it right now on Amazon. Thanks. David Wood, what would you rather someone be a Muslim or an atheist, and why?

And atheist at this point, because it's very common to say, okay, it's great. Muslims believe in God. They believe in Jesus to an extent. They believe in miracles and all this. So we'd have a bunch of common ground. But for purposes of Islam taking over the world and shaking that up a bit, I think it's good if people convert to anything else until some of that power structure is broken. How long have you been involved in apologetics against Mahal?

Muhammadism, which is what I like to call it, Muhammadism. A little bit way when I was locked up. So this was in the 1990s. But Muslims weren't the main alternative back then. The alternative was a cult called the Five Percenters. They were a more radical offshoot of the nation of Islam. But they were the biggest, like, non-Christian group. And so had more interactions with them.

But I did know Muslims hung out with Muslims. That's why I started studying a little bit, just basically whatever they told me, I would go and look it up. In prison, you were encountering Muslims, and this is why you got into apologetics? Yeah. Yeah, to an extent. I would react to whatever anyone was saying.

So any cult or anything, they started talking to me, I was like, oh, well, give me your sources and stuff like that, and I would go start looking it up. But I really started after, in 2001, because I became best friends with Nabil Qureshi. And at that point, I was just studying Islam just because my best friend is a Muslim. If he'd been a Mormon or something,

I would have been studying Mormonism. but he was a Muslim and then eventually he became a Christian about four years later and I actually thought cool I'm done with Islam that was the only reason I was studying Islam and um it was kind of watching the stand that he took for Jesus that I realized huh maybe I need to keep on maybe I need to keep up with this and even before that it was everyone started attacking him like he got his first death threat attached to his car and it was about a month he hadn't even been announcing it so very few people knew. And he got his first death threat attached to his car. And then I was, I was just thinking, I can't leave him by himself to face people who are going to be hostile

towards him. And so it was, you're going to have to, you're going to have to talk to both those. But yeah, over time, I realized, wow, these guys make really cool Christians. And there's, by the way, there's a reason for that, really important reasons. So you take a Muslim, they're basically raised from the time they're born to believe that the worst possible sin you can commit is shirk. It's a worst sin. Which is what? Shirk, that's that's associating a partner with Allah. So if it's not just, if it's not just Allah alone, if it's any, anything else, Trinity, uh, Jesus is the son of God. That's all shirk. It's the unforgivable sin. Doesn't mean you can't be forgiven of it. It means that's the only one Allah won't forgive

if it hasn't been repented of. Meaning he could, you could be a murderer and he might just, he might just forgive you and you, you don't know. Uh, shirk, he, he guarantees he's not going to forgive you of that. And so Muslims are raised all their life basically to understand if you say Jesus is Lord or Jesus is the son of God that is the worst possible sin. Well, guess what? That's what we're preaching. They also understand that if they convert very, very, very high probability that they're going to lose their families. And you basically get two versions of this. You basically get what you just converted. Get out of here. We don't ever want to talk to you again unless you come back as a Muslim. And then you'll have the others who spend a year or two trying to convert

the person back. So they'll take you around to Muslim scholars and so on to try and convert you back to Islam after you've left Islam. And Nabil's family was like that. His dad took him around the world to Europe and to Canada to talk to various Muslim scholars to try and convince him to come back to Islam. But could you also in this story tell people who Nabil was for those who aren't familiar? Oh yeah, Nabil was, he was just another student. I got out of prison and took a communications class, and I gave a speech, and the professor ran the speech and debate team, and she said, you should come, you should come check out the speech and debate team. I think, I think you'd fit in well. That's where I met Nabil. Nabil joined the speech and debate team as well. That's where we met,

and then you go to competitions at other schools. And so we went on a school trip. We ended up in a hotel room together. And at that point, all I knew was his name was Nabil Koreshi. So he's some sort of Muslim, but that doesn't tell if he's liberal or, you know, devout or what. And so I had no idea, but we get in the hotel room. I go on my bed and I'm reading the Bible in a year and I'm in Isaiah at that point. And so I'm reading Isaiah and see this guy out of the corner of my eye unpacking. And then I see him pull out his prayer rug. And I was like, okay, he's at least devout enough to bring a prayer rug on a couple day school trip.

So it doesn't seem like, doesn't seem terribly liberal here. But then I start praying. This is right after 9-11. and I start praying, and I say, okay, God, if you want me to talk to this guy, can you have him start the discussion? Because I don't want everyone saying I'm attacking the Muslim because of 9-11 or something like that. And right after I said that, all of a sudden he goes, so are you a hardcore Christian? Did he say it like that?

Yeah, exactly like that. Like that weird tone and stuff, are you a hardcore Christian? And I said, yes, I am. And that started our discussions that weekend. And we just ended up becoming best friends really quickly because other people on the team, they would, like after the competitions, they would like go out to clubs and stuff like this. We weren't interested. So we, every school, every trip like that, we always ended up hanging out in the room together. And we would inevitably start talking about Christianity and Islam.

And we both loved it. We both loved arguing about the stuff. So we got along really well. And we just became best friends really quick. So, and, you know, it was about four years later. he became a Christian after we spent probably the first two to two and a half years focusing almost exclusively on Christian topics. So we were talking about did Jesus die by crucifixion? Did he rise from the dead? What did he claim about himself? Is the New

Testament reliable? We were talking about those over and over again. And eventually, eventually we started talking about what about Muhammad and the Quran here? What about these claims about Muhammad and the Quran. So we started looking into that. So up until this point, it was more you on the defensive with him of the questions? Yeah, and that's pretty much, that's pretty, keep in mind, I'm learning as I go. I'm learning how to interact with, with Muslims as we go. And historically, that's pretty standard. And you can see why. The emphasis in Christianity is always be prepared to give a defense for the hope that you have, right? That's what we're commanded to do. We're commanded to give a defense for what we believe. In Islam,

It's just attack, attack the Jewish positions, attack Christian positions. It's all attacking. And so you get into a discussion, it's normally, hey, the Trinity doesn't make sense. Hey, how can you believe that Jesus is God? Where did he say, I am God, worship me? Your Bible's been corrupted, all these things, all these attacks, and then Christians trying to defend it. Well, that's just the pattern we kind of fell into.

But after a while, I was, it just hit me like, why aren't we talking about whether your guy's a prophet? And why aren't we talking about whether your book is the word of God? Why don't we apply the standards we're applying to my belief? to your beliefs, and at that point, did you have the sort of friendship where he wasn't fully defensive? Yeah, and that's really, really good. That's, that as far as I can tell, is like the best scenario, having two friends discussing these issues. Because we agreed early on, like probably in the first, it might have been that first series of discussions we had, like that

weekend. If not, it was very soon after that where we basically laid some groundwork and and concluded, there are three possibilities here. Either you're right and I'm wrong, or I'm right and you're wrong, or we're both wrong. We agree that we're not both right because we're saying completely contradictory stuff. So it's possible that something else is true

and that we're both wrong. But we don't believe that we're both wrong. We believe that one of us is right on this because you believe one thing I believe. So we're agreeing on the fact that one of us is right in this. And if one of us is right, we have to take it seriously

that God put us together in that room to have these discussions so that whoever's right can convince whoever's wrong. And therefore, we need to take this seriously. It's not a, it's not a joke. We're taking it as like a task from God that we have to get to the bottom of this. And that if we ever abandon that it's like we're abandoning a, you know, a mission from God. So at that point, were you genuinely open to the truth of Islam? No. No. No. And he wasn't genuinely open to the truth of Christianity. Like, I believe, I'm here from God to talk to this. He believed. He's there from God to get things across to me. So, yeah, so we ended up having these discussions for a long time.

It was about four years later that he became a Christian. Even before that, his confidence, his confidence in Islam was dropping. But he was compensating by acting more devout. Like he started signing his emails, humble servant of the truth, blah, blah, blah. You don't talk like that. What are you doing? But there's this tendency to compensate when you're starting to have. have doubts. And that's good advice for everyone. If you have a Muslim friend and you're talking to

a Muslim friend, because I hear this all the time like, David, I've been trying to talk to my Muslim friend. But the more, the more reasons I give him, the more bold in Islam, he seems like, yeah, that's pretty much every time. It's pretty much every time. And so, yeah, so he eventually left Islam. It was a big, it was a big issue for his family and parents and everyone. But I saw the stand that he was taking. He did his first debate. like a few months later and just crushed, just crushed a guy. Because he'd already been through it. He'd been rustling with the deity of Christ so much.

By the time he stepped up there and debated it, it was like rapid fire, rapid fire taken through the entire New Testament. And so anyway, at some point along those lines, I was like, maybe, maybe I need to stick with Islam. Because all those negative things that keep a Muslim in Islam because of all the psychological pressures. So again, they're told all their lives, is the worst possible sin.

And apart from that, they understand that they're going to have to give up their families. Their families may stick with them for a while to try and convert them back. But eventually, if it doesn't work, it's we don't want you, because they don't want you around your cousins. They don't want you influencing other people. So stay away from here. And they're very serious about that. Now, fortunately for Nabil, his parents did continue a relationship with him.

So that was way better situation than the vast majority of what I've seen. Yeah. Well, I just want to ask real quick. Tell me about Nabil converting. Like, what was the final straw? I know he's got a book before he passed. I forget the name of it. Seeking Allah, finding Jesus.

That's right. Yeah. Well, we've kind of gone through all the arguments and reasons and so on. And I tend to ask people, like, why do you believe that this is true? What are your reasons? Because that tells me what I need to study to see if those are good reasons or not. And that first weekend, when we're having these discussions, oh, it's because Islam is proven by history. and by mathematics and by prophecy and by this and reason and logic and everything supported Islam,

according to him. And so we eventually start going through that stuff. And this was probably a year before he converted when we had started talking about Islamic topics. And he found out there's all this stuff that he'd never heard about before in his sources. Because I'm going through his sources and I'm going, hey, you told me to read this source because this is going to show this. Well, look what I actually found. And I asked him again about that. a year because I noticed he changed and he wasn't, oh, you know, the scientific miracles, he wouldn't say in all this stuff anymore. And so I asked him about a year before he converted and I go, hey, so why do you believe that Islam is true? Why are you still a Muslim? And he said

two reasons. He said, one, it makes sense to me. And two, the people I feel the presence of God on most strongly are my grandparents and they're Muslims. And on the one hand, that's interesting because it went from all these, all this proof that Islam is true to that, to something else. But that was actually terrifying if anything can be like, oh, no, what do I do here? Because if you say science proves that Islam is true, that's something. We can open the books. You can show me what you're quoting that you think is some sort of miraculous scientific knowledge in the Quran or the Hadith. And we can investigate that.

And we're, I was a biology and philosophy major. he was communications major and pre-med and stuff like that. Smart guy. He knew his stuff. We could actually look through stuff seriously and know what we're talking about. So everything he said when we first met, that was all stuff we could investigate. If you say Islam makes sense to me and I feel the presence of God on my grandparents. You can't argue with that.

What am I going to say? No, you don't. No, you don't feel the presence of God on your grandma. Like, how do you argue with that? I've met her. She's awful. I don't know what she'd say. But it went from the realm of the falsifiable to the realm of the unfalsifiable.

There's no evidence I'm thinking there's no evidence I can give you to convince you that you don't feel the presence of God on your grandma. So like, what do I even do with this point? And so after that was like, what do I do now, apologetics or polemics or what do I do against someone who's become unfalsifiable? But I realize, wait a minute, if you're taking that as evidence, you still might be given stronger evidence that outweighs that evidence. If you're taking this as some kind of evidence, then we can still have evidence that outweighs

that makes you think, okay, maybe my feeling about my grandma isn't the deciding factor in all of this. So we kept at it. And after a while, he got to the point where he's just, Islam makes sense to me, but these guys have evidence for everything they believe. He didn't tell me this until after he became a Christian, but he said when we would go through the historical reliability of the New Testament, or when we would go through why Christians believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. He told me later, he said, every time we got through, we went through this stuff, I would be thinking to myself, wow, I thought these guys had nothing, but they have really good reasons for what they believe. And so that started bothering him. And so he told me, again, later on after

he converted, how what would happen in his mind is, well, these guys actually have good reasons for everything they believe. But even if they show me with 99% certainty that all these things are true. I'm still 100% certain that Islam is true because of the scientific miracles and because of the perfect preservation of the Quran and because of the amazing character of Muhammad. Hence the importance of us going through all those issues eventually. And so then he started saying that he has doubts about all these things. And then he went into this different mode where it was, we're all human beings. We have biases. We're raised to think certain things. And we only know a tiny fraction of what can be known. So I can't tell what's true. I don't think God is going to hold me accountable if I

if I get this wrong. So I'm just going to stay. I'm just going to remain a Muslim. And so I was another like, oh no, what do I do here? Fortunately, fortunately, he continued wanting to pursue, but he prayed to God one night. He was on a trip with his dad. He was in a hotel room. And he prayed. And he said, God, I know I'm biased here. I see good reasons to believe in Christianity. but Islam still makes sense to me. I don't know what to do here. So you're going to have to tell me. He said, so can you give me a vision to tell me what to do?

And whatever vision you give me, I'll follow it. And he said, the room he was in faded to black and all he saw were crosses. Oh, my. And then he said he prayed, well, that may be it, but how do I know my mind's just not playing tricks on me? He said, so can you give me a dream? and then he had this weird dream where he's up on a mountain and he's up on this mountain with

everyone, all his family and stuff, they're all in this mountain. All of a sudden he zooms out to a different view from a different mountain. He's looking. It's not a mountain. It's on this giant like reptilian thing. And he goes, whoa, we're all in this giant reptilian thing. And this giant reptile turns and he said this giant, boy walks up and says, I know what you are talking to the reptile and says, I know what you are.

I challenge you to a fight. And he says the boy smushes the reptile. And then the reptiles enraged. The reptile turns to him and it goes to attack him. And then he says, but the boy has a cricket with a sword. And the cricket with a sword pops out and chops the reptiles head off. Right. And so he tells me this, and he tells multiple people this. And they're like, so it sounds like the reptile thing is something you are already part of. And then you get, you see it from a different angle and you realize it's bad. And then there's a boy, which he interpreted as me. I challenge you to fight. Yeah. He interprets the boy as me. And he interprets the cricket as Christ with a sword to chop its head off right before it destroys him.

And so he, he told this, he told this to everyone, even like, even his family, they said, oh, you have to break out our books on dream interpretation. And he looks it up and it's like the reptilian iguana thing. That's an enemy. And a boy is a friend and a cricket is a protector and all this stuff. And he's like, whoa. Wait a minute. This all fits exactly what I thought. But then then he thought to himself, well, that's a lot of, there's a lot of symbolism and so on. I can't, I'm not going to base my conversion, my internal, possibly my eternal destiny on something that I'm interpreting. So he prayed. He said, God, can you give me a dream? I don't have to interpret.

And so after- Because the crosses weren't enough. Yeah. So, let's keep going on. So after that, he had another dream. And he calls me up one day. He calls me up. He said, hey, are there dreams in Christianity?

And I go, well, I mean, in the Bible, people had dreams telling them what to do and stuff. Yeah. So he got Joseph there. And then Joseph in the Old Testament, Joseph in the New Testament. Yeah, you had people getting dreams in the Bible, getting worn by dreams and stuff. And he goes, okay, how do you interpret this? He said, I'm standing outside this narrow doorway. And I look in and you're inside there.

And you're at this big feast. You're all looking, you're waiting for someone to show up to the feast. And I can't get in. The door's just narrow enough for me to get in, but I'm outside. And he says, and I look in and I call out and I say, David, I thought we were supposed to eat together. And he said, you didn't even look over at me. You just go, you never responded. And he goes.

So any idea what that could mean? I go, open your Bible to Luke. And he said, this is a Bible I'd given him. It's like a, I don't know, NIV study Bible or something like that. So some study Bible. But he said he opened it up to the passage and the heading was the narrow door. And he looked and that's where, you know, you will be outside the feast where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and you'll see the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and stuff. And he, and it was funny because when he asked me about it, when he said, hey, how do you interpret this?

He said, the first thing I said was, I don't need to interpret it. It's straight out of the Bible. You just dreamed yourself right into a parable of the Bible. And it was that I don't need to interpret it. It's like, wait, I prayed for something that I wouldn't need to interpret. And he still didn't become a Christian after that. He said, okay, two dreams is good. Could I have a third one?

And his third dream was, he's in a mosque. he's waiting for the leader of his sect to arrive, to arrive in the mosque. And he's sitting on some steps inside the mosque. There's a stairway. He's sitting on the steps. Anyway, the leader of his sect shows up and sits down on the floor in front of him. And you can't be seated higher than the leader. So he said, I tried to get down off the steps, but I was blocked.

I can't get off the steps. And so he said, I have to go around. And he said, I turned and looked. And the steps were leading up out of the mosque. And so the only way, the only way out of this was to leave the mosque and so on. And even then, it was months. It was months after that of discussions and so on before. It was kind of funny the way he told me he became a Christian.

We ended up going to a Chinese restaurant. It was me and probably five or six Christian friends and Nabil. And we grab our, we get our plates and then we say, all right, who's going to pray? And Nabil goes, I'll pray. And everyone's like, oh, boy. I'm like, okay, let's see what this is like. And he goes, and he goes, Lord, bless this food. And he says a little prayer.

And he goes, and I pray this in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. And I just thought, wow, everyone at the table got it instantly. But I've been arguing with him for so long. It didn't hit me. I was like, gosh, he's hanging out with us so much. Now he even prays like a Christian. He's hanging out with us so long. He even prays like a Christian now when that was him telling us that he had become a Christian.

Wow. Anyway, so, yep, that's when I thought I was done with Islam right then. I was like, cool, I'm done studying this stuff. I'm not interested. Well, I want to tell everybody to get, because. I haven't read it, but I would imagine the book is excellent. Seeking Allah, finding Jesus. And I'm sure the story goes into great a detail in there.

Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah, I often think that we don't give people enough credit when we are expecting them to change deep-seated beliefs. You know, we say, just convert, just convert to my brand of Christianity or convert to this religion. And we don't realize what it would take for you or I, let's say, to get rid of our deep-seated beliefs and how I think we have to be, I think, gentle with people

as we seek to do that, because it's not like, we're debating what the capital of Australia is. Like if you had that wrong and I corrected you, you would just abandon your false belief. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what I was kind of leading up to before, that all these negative features of Islam,

these psychological barriers. So the worst possible sin is saying Jesus Christ is Lord. It's the worst sin you can commit in Islam. You're going to have to give up your family or have a very strained relationship with your family forever. And beyond that, the penalty for leaving Islam, according to Muhammad, his death. Muhammad said, if anyone leaves his Islamic religion, kill him.

And so fortunately, he doesn't get carried out much in the West because lots of Muslims believe you need an Islamic state to be carrying that out and not just like a random person doing it. So that's fortunate. But there's nothing that says, oh, only in an Islamic state. So you always have to wonder, is someone going to carry this penalty out at some point? So anyway, when we're preaching the gospel, the good news, what a Muslim is hearing is, oh, you want me to believe this thing,

which will force me to give up my family, my friends, I don't just mean mom and dad. I mean cousins, aunts, uncles, my entire community. I have to give all that up and maybe get my head chopped off and then definitely get me sent to hell. Like you guys are calling that the good, the good, because it sounds like the worst news ever. You guys are calling it the good news. But all these things actually become good because when a Muslim has wrestled with these issues and eventually gets to the point where he thinks, you know what, I may have to give up my entire family. and this may get my head chopped off. And I've been told all my life this will get me sent to hell. You know what? I want to know Jesus anyway.

That's someone who is already like, that's someone who will lay down his life for Jesus. He's already willing to give up everything to know Jesus. And so it's not this easy, hey, why don't you pray with me to receive Christ? And it's not costing a person anything. It's already costing him everything. I see. And so that's someone who will lay down his life for Jesus. And that's why I realized afterwards, oh, these guys make,

really awesome Christians. That's why I kept up with it afterwards. Wow. Okay. And so you had your YouTube channel for a while. And a couple of years ago, didn't you retire that and start something else? So I'm a bit confused. I gave away my old channel. Okay. And I was just going to delete it. And someone said, if you're going to just delete it, why don't you give it to someone else? So I gave it to Hatoon Tash, who's an ex-Muslim from Turkey in the UK, was going to Speakers Corner and stuff. And I was like, hey, I have way more subscribers and stuff. I had about 700,000. I was like, hey, if you want that channel, you can have it. I'm going to take down most of my old videos. I had just become like the main attack point for complaints. And so YouTube just got to the point where

they're banning, they weren't banning it. Like everything I would post would get flagged for some reason. It was always bogus. I always followed the rules. Yeah. And I would always win the appeals, but it would sometimes it would be quick. It would take a couple hours. But sometimes it would take weeks going back and forth because you can't you can't get them to sit down and watch your entire video when you say there's nothing like you you're saying there's when there's this we've flagged this video for supporting a terrorist organization there's nothing in there about any of that it's me talking it's me talking about Jesus what are you talking about it can take forever to actually get them to go through and remove the remove the strike and so on

but I just realized I've been targeted somehow I was on a list at YouTube flag everything this guy puts out and stuff. And I'm just like, and they got worse every, it got worse every year. And so it's the point where I was just fighting not to put out, not to put out more content, but just to keep my old content up. And I'm just thinking, do I want to spend the next 20 years of my life just fighting just to keep my content up? No, I'd rather just burn it all to the ground and start over. So that's what you did. Yeah, I did. So I have a YouTube channel now. They don't mess me at all because I, I know. One, basically, I kind of laid low for a while, let other channels become popular as well. Yeah. And, and,

And now there's a bunch of channels that are dealing with Islam. And then I also know, okay, this is what kind of set them off at various times. So dial those things back a little bit. And now YouTube doesn't mess with me at all. I get just as many views as I used to, but no messing with me. Wow. All right. So how long would you say since you began that YouTube channel retired at Saturday,

and you want to now? Like how long have you been doing this work in apologetics? probably i think we got on youtube in like 2007 or 2008 right after it came out whoa i didn't realize that we weren't focusing on youtube back then back then it was mainly we would announce hey we're going to be speaking at this church at this place and people would message us oh i can't be there because i live in this country and then we're like okay we'll we'll toss that on this new thing youtube and then anyone in the world can watch it and it was so that was our only intention for youtube and so on eventually we made a video we were just

goofing off. You may remember this, but this was a long time ago. There was a guy who was Pastor Terry Jones, and he was going to have a burn the Koran day in Florida. I actually debated the guys. Like, seriously, you want to start, you want to respond with book burnings and stuff? We had a debate about that. But at the same time, when I was debating this guy, I was thinking, Uthman, the third of the rightly guided Caliphs burned all the Qur'ans. So by the time you get to the third of the rightly guided Caliph. So you have Muhammad, then you have Abu Bakr, then you have Umar, then you have Uthman. Okay.

By the time you're at Uthman, there are so many differences in the Quran that he has to order the entire Muslim community to hand over their Qurans. And he burns them all and issues a standardized Quran. And I'm thinking, why are they getting mad at this guy burning a Quran, which isn't affecting the Quran? There's, there's Korans all over there. But they're not getting mad that this guy burned all the Korans. How are you not mad about that, right?

So we made a video and it was called the original Burn the Koran Day. And it's just me and Nabil goofing off where we're reading all these passages. I don't know about this at all, by the way, so I'm interested. Oh, yeah. Just in case you assumed I knew all about this and they're there for a truncating your story. Because this is what changed our mind about the significance of YouTube. All right. So we make a video and I'm sitting there and it's funny because we planned this, how I was going to be a Quran burner and the meal's going to come up and start arguing with me.

So I'm there and we realized none of us had a lighter and stuff. So I just took a stick and I start rubbing the stick. Like I'm starting a fiber rubbing a stick and a pile of Islamic book. And Abil walks in, we were like, over-the-top, ridiculous acting. And he walks in, David, what are you doing? You're not going to burn these books, are you? And I'm like, well, the thought had crossed my mind. He goes, no, books are filled with valuable knowledge.

Here, I'll open one to a random page. And he opens it up, and it's about Uthman burning all the Qurans. And they were shocked, right? We're shocked that they were burning Qurans. And they were like, we've got to go through it. And we just start, we're pretending to open these things randomly. But it's about all the changes to the Quran versus eaten by a sheep, entire chapters being forgotten because people forgot to recite them and so on.

And we're just going through this. And by the end, we're like, hey, it's good that we're not burning these books because they contain all this information about the history of the Quran and so on. So we were just goofing off. We had been doing shows in a studio and we're hanging out with guys afterwards. And we make this video. We're sticking on YouTube, just joking. Yeah. And it was, I forget, it was like a week or 10 days later, it had hit 100,000 views. Whoa. And that's when I clicked on YouTube analytics for the first time. I didn't know what analytics of what.

And I clicked on it. And it told you where people are watching it. It's like at the top was the United States. Next, it would be like UK and then Canada and so on. Got down to like six or seventh or eighth place or whatever it was. And it said it was either 3.6 or 3.8% Pakistan. And I just looked at it. Then I go, 3.6% of 100.

That's 3,600 people. in Pakistan who just watched all this stuff that's in their sources that you couldn't tell them if you went there. They'd form a mob as soon as you started talking about the Quran being changed and stuff like. They'd form a mob and they'd beat you to death. And it just hit me right there. It's wait. For 14 centuries, Muslim leaders have been able to keep their people insulated from hearing any criticisms of anything they're saying and from hearing any alternative position presented to them. And their leaders have been able, especially in places like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and so on, they've been able to keep their people insulated from hearing a serious presentation

of the gospel. Because you have missionaries who go over there. And if you were at all successful, and people started converting to Christianity, you're going to get head chopped off. And so it just hit me like, we have just reached a new era of history where they can no longer keep their people insulated, which means we now have access to people in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and all these places through the internet. And that was just like, I don't want to go around speaking anymore. I mean, they'll do it if someone asked, but I would rather just sit here and make videos in front of my camera and have people in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and everyone around the world watching it. And so that's why I really focused on YouTube after that. Do you have that original

video? Does it still exist? Oh, yeah. Oh, I can't wait to watch that. I've been talking a lot lately about my friends at the College of St. Joseph the Worker, you know, Jacob Imam, Mike Sullivan, Andrew Jones and Company, the guys who started the college that combines the Catholic intellectual tradition with skilled trades training. Well, listen to this. They're growing their program and are looking to connect with experienced Catholic tradesmen to hire as instructors. So if you are an experienced carpenter, plumber, h-vac technician or electrician, and want to help mentor and teach future Catholic tradesmen, go right now to College of St.Joseph.com slash careers to connect with the college and see how you can become part of something truly special.

And if you're watching or listening and know a tradesman who needs to hear this message, please invite them to reach out to the college. Again, that's College of STJoseph.com slash careers. College of St.Joseph.com slash careers. Thanks. All right. So then did you come at the topic systematically? Or did you just start making videos on whatever you were interested in?

Basically whatever I was interested in. But I'd learned from Muslims what their main reasons were. for believing in Islam. And I've been going through the sources with Nabil and learning responses to those. And it's almost always the case that what they're told is not what their sources say. And so it was just, hey, you've heard this.

Let's see what it says. And also Christian apologetics. Hey, you've been told Christians can't support this and I'll make a video about it. And so it was just like that. It was all based on discussions with him. And then just kind of making videos about all the stuff I'd learned

over time. And so just kept doing that and found out, well, Muslims around the world had the same sort of objections and issues and so on. So let's just make that common knowledge. That's been kind of the goal. Make the criticisms common knowledge. Make the responses to arguments, common knowledge. And then you also, because then I found out over time that I'm not just talking to Muslims, it's Christians who are talking to the Muslim friend and their Muslim friend says, this is a scientific miracle. How could Muhammad have known this? And so they go look it up and, oh, wait, now here's a video waiting for them. Well, look at what this says. Let's look at the commentaries and that was all making it there for them. What has the response been like from Muslims over the last

however many years, 20 years or so? Back then it was tons and tons and tons of death threats. Really? And how did they, I mean, were they comments in YouTube? Was it email? How did you get it? And what did they say? All of those and tons of them. I mean, I get 40 or 50 death threats a day and I'm going to kill you. It's going to be your wife. It's going to be your kids, all that stuff. See, it's funny because sometimes when people say they get death threats, I often wonder if they're kind of blowing it out of proportion. But of course, Nabil gets it on his car. Okay, that's terrifying.

They talk about your wife and kids. That's terrifying. So are these emails, direct messages? What are you getting? Yeah, emails, comments on Facebook, tweets, mostly YouTube in response to videos and stuff like that. But yeah, emails. And it was way worse back then, way worse. Because there are only a few people doing it.

There are only few people criticizing Islam publicly. And as long as there's like two, three, four people. And back then there was very few people. Samuel Green down in Australia. There was Jay Smith in the UK. There's Tony Costa up in Canada. And there were like a couple of us in America. Now, there are other people who were like writing articles and stuff like that.

But as far as people like putting their faces out there and talking about this stuff, it was a handful. But that means you know exactly who to target with threats and so on. It's way better now that there's way more people. Now you have tons of ex-Muslims because back then you had very few ex-Muslims who were known to be ex-Muslims. Now they're ex-Muslims everywhere. Really? I mean, all over the place. Wow.

I'd love to hear more about that. And the YouTube algorithm now has been programmed to detect death threat. So when I get a death threat on YouTube now, it's like worded oddly. If you just say, I'm going to kill you that instantly, I'll see it pop up. If I'm on there when you get your update and stuff like that, I'll see it. And then like a second later, it disappears. Uh-huh. So, or when I refresh the page, it disappears.

So now, it's, yeah, they're way less frequent. Wow. So you say a lot of Muslims are converting. What evidence do you have to support that? Is that just a story that Christians want to tell themselves so they can feel triumphant, or is it actually happening? Oh, it's happening. Happening all the time.

In fact, so the official statistics, the official statistics are among young Muslims, like three or four years ago, the statistic was 24% of young Muslims. Muslims are leaving Islam. That's up from what was close to zero percent, just if you go back two decades. So the apostasy rate among young Muslims went from around 0 percent to 24 percent. Now the most recent one was 26 percent. So you've got that. You've got statistics that show that between 60 and 70 percent of Muslims who convert to Islam leave it within a couple of years. So people who are, hey, I'm converting to Islam, and then they find out, oh, there's all this stuff I wasn't told before as part of the deal. And then they leave Islam. So most people, so if anyone's

watching, they're going, oh, my cousin, converted to Islam, what am I going to do? Probably going to leave Islam within the next couple of years, because that's just, that's what's been happening. But I only started keeping track because back when I was getting started, it was standard. It was standard in Christian, among Christians, that you don't ever criticize Muhammad or the Quran. You don't do it. I remember being told that. I wrote an article against Islam back in 2012, and I put an image, and it was like a respectful image of Muhammad and everyone assured me that I'd be killed, don't do that. So I was like, oh, I took it down. But then I see the kind of things, the kind of characters of Muhammad you post.

I'm like, well, I guess I could have. But maybe I'd be getting death threats. Yeah. So back then, and I always tell people, they have no idea how much it sucked back then. When I say there was only a few of us dealing with Islam that were actually going after Muslim arguments and stuff, back then, I'm talking 2008, 2009, if you were going after Islam, you got blasted by everyone. So you're getting death threats. heaped on you from Muslims. We're going to kill you. We're going to kill your wife.

We're going to kill your family, all this stuff. We're going to do this to your mom, blah, blah, blah. Atheist, this was the height of the new atheism. So the new atheist responses you got, there were always, there were always atheists who were like, I hope you're successful, right? Because there were always atheists who were like, okay, I think all this is nonsense,

but I'd rather have Christianity than Islam. Sam Harris types. Yeah, you had those guys. But you also had just tons of the new atheists, too. Their response was, how dare you criticize another religion when you're a religion too, when you're religious too, and all religions are stupid, you giant hypocrite. So you're getting blasted there. But then even Christians, we're supposed to be loving and this is hurting their feelings. How are you attacking Muhammad when this is so dear to them? You're just going to drive them away. You're just going to drive them away. And I was like, me criticizing Muhammad doesn't drive them. They can't stay away from me. They come right at me. They come right at me and start arguing. Where are you saying this is going to drive them away and they're never going to talk to you again? And I actually had to try and figure out where that idea came up among Christians. Because, again, it was standard. There was every Christian you talked to almost.

I was telling you, don't ever cry, don't ever criticize Muhammad or the Quran. You're just going to drive them away and you'll never be able to reach them with the gospel. And so I was trying to figure this out. I eventually tracked it down to two sources. Two sources I found this. One, it was Christians who heard from a missionary, right? You'd have missionaries over in Muslim countries. and they come back and they give a presentation on reaching Muslims and stuff like that.

And they would say, don't ever criticize Muhammad of the Crown. Well, that makes sense if you're a missionary in Pakistan. That makes sense. That makes perfect sense. We're talking about us here. But everyone's hearing, don't ever criticize Muhammad or the Quran. It's just going to enrage them. And I'm thinking, okay, so you guys are taking advice from people where it makes sense

and then applying it here where it doesn't make sense. So I'm not taking that seriously. The other source, the other source of this information was from interfaith dialogues, where the Muslim speaker would say, Isn't it great that we're building bridges and all getting together for these discussions? And we've got a Jew here and the Jews watching. And we've got a Christian here and the Christians watching. And we all get to speak and get along.

Isn't this great? Just so you know, if you want to keep these bridges going, we want to continue having these discussions, never criticize Muhammad or the Quran, because then there won't be any bridges and we won't have any of these discussions. And so Christians will be telling me this. And I heard from this guy, this guy at the interfaith meeting, he said, don't ever criticize Muhammad of the Quran, because we want to build bridges. and you're just trying to burn the bridges down. What's wrong with you?

And I'm going, wait, let me just, let me repeat to you what you just said. You tell me if you think this makes sense. You're telling me that you believe that this Muslim speaker talking to a bunch of Christians and telling them, if you want to effectively share the gospel with Muslim, don't do these things. And you think this Muslim speaker is trying to give you valuable insights into reaching Muslims with the gospel. That's your takeaway there. You think this guy's trying to tell you how to reach Muslims with the gospel. That's what you believe?

And kind of just saying it, they kind of, huh. Fair point. Maybe I shouldn't. I'm like, if I'm talking, if I'm hearing from a Muslim speaker who's telling me how to preach the gospel, I'm probably going to think I need to do the exact opposite of what this guy's saying, because there's no way he's actually trying to help me reach Muslims with the gospel. And so I realized that it was so ingrained that I just kind of had to, to, to, to show them. I was like, okay, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. And you guys keep doing

with what you're doing. We'll see who wins. We'll see. And so eventually, I wasn't, I always, like when you post, hey, this guy, um, hey, this guy after watching my videos, says he left Islam and now he's a Christian because people send me those messages. And I never wanted to share those because it's like bragging, like, I'm so great or something. Look at me. Look at me, guys. Look, this guy converted after watching some of my stuff. But at the same time, I was constantly receiving the messages, don't ever do this or it'll just drive Muslims away, and I needed to respond to that. Yeah.

So when that would come up, when people, when someone important would say, David, you're just driving Muslims away, you're doing so much harm, we're never going to be able to talk to Muslims. I would start posting batches of 10, right? 10. To where? To you two. I would say, hey, so-and-so says, David, you're just driving Muslims away and now they'll

never take the gospel seriously. Well, to respond to that, we have these 10, these 10 testimonies that I took screenshots of. David, I used to hate you. I was just watching your videos to expose them because my cousins were watching them and I realized I had to refute you and just so you know, I left Islam

and now I'm a Christian. It was like that over and over again. And it wasn't, I couldn't keep it up for long because you get tons and tons of comments. You have to actually go through them to find these. But for about a month and a half when I was trying to respond to these guys who were constantly, this will never work, David.

It'll never work. You're doing it all wrong. I would start screenshoting when I saw comments from Muslim saying, hey, thank you for your videos, I just left Islam. And when I was doing that, I was able for a month and a half to post between one and three of those every single day for a month and a half, just based on the comments I was getting every day.

Yep. And it was just, hey, you guys tell me this. Check out, check out these three from today. And fortunately, people caught on after a while. It's like, wait a minute, we're saying this never works. And almost every Muslim we hear from, I mean, every ex-Muslim we hear from, only converted to Christianity or only left Islam after hearing Muhammad and the Quran blasted

and destroying all those reasons. I mean, think about how that ties into the deal. We're talking about Christianity for a couple years and Christian topics, he didn't convert, even after realizing why we have great evidence for what we believe, he didn't convert. Why? He still thinks he has 100% certainty. He thinks he has 100% certainty

because his mind has been filled with all these false claims about scientific miracles, about the miraculous perfect preservation of the Quran, about Muhammad being the greatest man of all time, all these arguments that his head is filled with all these, he thinks it gives him 100% certainty. Nothing can ever compete with that. He's never going to take any alternative seriously. He's never going to take the gospel seriously. It's not until the confidence in those issues is shaken that you're actually able, okay, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I need to take a closer look at

this. So I would estimate probably at least 95% of the ex-Muslims I've ever heard from. only left Islam after having all these arguments and stuff wrecked in front of their faces, like to realize, oh, all this stuff is that I've been told all my life. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny. That's when they start taking something. That's when they start, oh, I need to investigate this myself. Because how it works, they just have immense confidence in their imams, their parents, their sheikhs, and so on, that what they're being told is true.

And you eventually say, actually, that's what you've been told? Here, let me show you that's wrong. And they're confused. It's, huh, but they'll do the same thing. They'll go back to the same shake and, oh, how do I explain this? And then they'll get the new explanation. Then they'll come back. And then you'll look at it and go, that's wrong too.

I can show you from your sources. That's false. And this will happen several times. They'll keep going back to the same shake. They'll keep going back to the same Imam. But eventually there's like this light switch moment when it's, wait a minute, this guy's told me this stuff all my life. All my confidence in Islam is based on what this guy has been telling me.

And this Christian keeps showing me that what this guy saying is false. And he's using my sources to show me that according to my own sources what that guy said is false. And eventually there's light goes on. It's maybe I can't trust that guy with my entire salvation and everything else. Maybe I need to look into this for myself. And the moment he says, I'm going to, I need to look into this for myself. I can't just have this confidence in this guy. That's when they're on their way out of Islam. That's when it's starting. They're about to leave Islam because they're going to look into all this for themselves. And they're going to find out that it's a none of this stuff stands up to screw.

What do Christian apologists do that you wish they wouldn't when it comes to trying to convert Muslims? Have you thought about that? Are there annoying things or things that you know aren't effective that Christians try? Way more so back in the day. Way more so back in the day, back when it was, here's how you do it and just preach the gospel. And it's weird because if people say, hey, I just preach the gospel to Muslims, I'm fine. Cool. Awesome.

Yeah, because guess what? There are Muslims who've already been wrestling with the issues. They just need someone preaching the gospel. They need a friend who's preaching the gospel to them. So I'm fine with that. I've never been one who's like, this is my way. It's the only way. Yeah.

No, not everyone needs to be doing things my way. In fact, one of the reasons I was doing things my way was, okay, there's a bunch of people doing it that way. Someone needs to be doing it this way. Someone needs to be blasting away at this stuff. Is there something cultural that has these Muslims respecting that kind of confrontational approach that we're unaware of here in the West? Oh, yeah. And that's something else that I found out from Nabil, and I thought it was just Nabil. And then I found out, no, it's everyone else.

It's everyone else, too. And I even remember the moment. We were watching, because we would watch Christian Muslim debates. And there weren't a lot back then. But we watched, it was me and the Beal, and we were over at Mike Lekona's house, but Mike was somewhere else. So it's me and Nabil at Mike Lekona's house. He's a Christian New Testament scholar.

And he lived in our area. But we're watching a debate between William Lane Craig and Jamal Badawee. And that was one of the most one-sided, debates I'd ever seen. Craig annihilated everything Badawi said. Badawi couldn't answer anything Craig was saying. It was completely one-sided. And you have, you always have Christians and Muslims who are just going to side with their guy no matter what. Nabil wasn't like that. If Nabil thought the Muslim lost, he thought he would say the Muslim lost. Like when Mike Lekona, our friend, debated Shabir Ali, will, Nabil said, yeah, I think, I think Mike won that. So he can, he can

acknowledge when a Christian wins a debate. We watched that debate for some reason. By the And Badawi was, like, flustered and he started yelling. Starts yelling. Blah, flak, blah, right? Now, when you or I see a debater get flustered and frustrated and start yelling. Not a great sign. He's... For us, right?

For us. Uh-huh. We're sitting there thinking, oh, this guy, you know you're losing. You're getting desperate. Your emotions are taking over. William Lang Craig, totally calm. Why? He has no reason to get flustered or frustrated.

He knows he's winning. And the Muslim guy's yelling because... he's so desperate he doesn't know what to do is getting crushed. That's what you and I were seeing. We finished the debate and I go, I would have scored it like 95 to 5 and I think that would be generous. It was a complete, it was a complete massacre. So I turned to be on. I go, hey, so what did you think of that debate? And he goes, ah, Badawi clearly won. And I go, I was like legitimately confused. If it had been some other random Muslim, I'd say, okay, you're just siding with your guy. I knew Nabil, I knew Nabil's not like that. So what was he just seeing? It took me a while.

to pry this out of them. But when he sees Muslim debater yelling Christian completely calm, it's he's yelling because he has a righteous anger at the blasphemy being put out by this Christian. And so it is a righteous, godly anger that the Christian is leading people astray. The Christian is calm because deep down, he doesn't believe what he's saying. he can't even get excited about it. He can't get excited. He can't get emotional about it because deep down he knows he's wrong.

And that's weird from Nabil, who sounded like a very logical guy, part of the debate team, surely knows how debates are won and lost and yet he still couldn't see through that? That's what I mean. It's like, Nabil? I understand a guy, you know, from, you know,

like Pakistan where they form the mobs or something like this, just where emotion is in charge of everything. But Nabil, how is he? So at first I thought it was like Nabil and it was like, oh, these guys have a more respect for an aggressive in your face, yelling approach. Again, I thought that was him. And we, after he became a Christian, we both started

debating. We started debating Muslims. And then I would get up there in these early debates. I would present all the information that I wanted to present, but I would do it as gently as possible, like as gently as I could be. Like, because, you know, there's a nice little old Muslim ladies sitting in the front row. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I want you to, I want this information in your head, but I'm not trying to be mean about it or something. And then, but then the response from Muslims would be, ha ha, he's so weak. And it's like, and one day I just got ticked off and I just went and spit it like, how can you believe this stuff? Oh my goodness. Do you know what your prophet did to that little girl? And they walked out of there and they're going,

he's destroying our religion. Oh my goodness. And I'm like, wait, you're just paying attention to how I say it. That's it. You're paying attention to how I'm saying it. You're not actually, it's not the information. It's like my demeanor and my attitude and how confident I am. What's crazy is once you realize that, you can see it all the way through the Muslim sources. There's a story, there's a story in Ibn Asak, where two brothers, Moua Yisa and Huaysa, I forget which one converted. One of the two brothers converted to Islam, or this is during the time of Muhammad, one of the two brothers converts to Islam, Muayisa and Huayisa. And then Muhammad tells his followers, go kill any Jew who falls into

your power. They're mad at Jews at this point. So Muhammad says, go kill any Jew that falls into your power. And the brother had converted goes out and kills a Jew. And his other, his brother is like, that was our family friend, man. That was our family friend. Darren. We have business relations with him. You just ruined our business relations. And his brother says, if Muhammad told me to kill you, I'd kill you too. And his brother says, wow, any religion that brings you to this must be the truth. Oh. And so that that mentality is completely foreign to us. It's, hey, we're sitting around. You know, we're brothers. We're sitting around all day. We're watching cartoons on Saturday, eating Doritos. And all of a sudden, you're ready to go on a killing spree. Something big must have changed. And so for them, it's a sign of the truth that something is making you so aggressive and violent that you're ready to kill over it. You must know what you're talking about. You're not just going to kill over it. So you must know.

And so they rest their confidence in what you believe based on how violent it's making you. And you can, again, once you spot this, you can see it in the Muslim sources because after Muhammad died, you had a bunch of people left Islam after Muhammad died because they were only in Islam because they were scared of Muhammad. There were people who converted to Islam. just because they didn't want to get killed by Muhammad. So Muhammad dies and a bunch of people left Islam. Now, they left Islam in various ways. Some just were not Muslims anymore. But others just said, we're still Muslims.

We're still going to pray five times a day. We're still going to do all this stuff. But we're not paying our zakat. We're not paying our zakat. That's like their alms. We're not paying it to the government. We'll just, I'll go give alms to someone in private. I don't have to give it to you.

Abu Bakr put them in the exact same category, the apostate category. Your apostates. If you're not doing what your leader tells you, you're an apostate too. and I'm coming to kill you. And Umar, who became the second of the rightly guided Calus, but he's, he's there. He starts arguing with Abu Bakr, wait a minute.

Muhammad said there's only a couple reasons you can kill a Muslim. You kill him for apostasy. You kill him for killing someone else. You kill him for adultery. But you can't kill them for not paying there's a cop properly. And Abu Bakr's saying, no, if they're not doing it, then they are in the apostate category. And Umar said something very interesting. He said, I could tell by the heaving of his chest that he was right.

Like, he got so enraged when I said, don't kill them as apostates. He got so enraged that I knew he must have been right. Something is enraging you that much. Then you must know it. And I don't know. I'm like on the fence kind of or I lean in this direction, but you're so confident that you must be right. And so this is all connected to, if you go down to today, someone criticized the Quran in Pakistan, mob forms around them and beats the person to death. That's how you show that you have the truth.

You just get violent over it. And that's somehow a sign that you have the truth on your side. Whereas we look at that and go, if you guys can't. can't respond with, you know, an argument to show why the person's wrong and you just instantly start killing the person. We think that's a weakness. They think it's a strength. Which is weird, right? Because Islam does have a respectable philosophical tradition. Even Sina and Al-Ghazali and others. So it's not simply that they're, what, irrational or not interested in logic, especially when you look at the apologetics that they're engaged in today. They seem intent on showing the position

wrong. So I guess, I guess, why am I saying that? Because I would think that if someone acts like that, it's because they're not interested in the truth. And so they're not interested in following the argument. Yeah, philosophy just, it didn't really last. No, it didn't. So yeah, you've, you've always had people, and you have people still today trying to defend it philosophically and so on. It's just, it's not, it's not mainstream. Yeah. And wherever it's mainstream, it's mainstream, like if it's, if it becomes mainstream for Islamic apologetics and like America and so on. It's basically, this is what's appealing to you guys. And so we're going to, we're going to adapt for you. But yeah, you would have a science takeoff for a little while in

Islam. You'd have philosophy takeover for a while in Islam. You'd have all their writings. But it gets suffocated. It gets suffocated by like what Islam really is. Wow. So how many if you had to guess people have written to you saying they've left Islam? And then my second question is, are they leaving it for a sort of atheistic nihilism or a hedonism or are they many of them becoming Christians? I don't have I don't have any statistics but yes there are there are plenty of people who David thank you for helping me leave Islam and they become an atheist or an agnostic because and you can see why right like if I say hey here are all these reasons that what you've been told all your life are complete nonsense and then you realize whoa I can't trust that shake in what he told me all my

life. Just because you recognize you've been given terrible arguments all your life doesn't mean you therefore accept the Christian arguments. In fact, it was a, it was a fairly common response. I don't trust any of this religious stuff. Right. And because simultaneously, you also had the new atheists going along and blasting away saying, ha, you know, all these religions are just based on nonsense. This is the only position that makes sense and so on. So you did have, you did have tons of people like that. Again, I don't, I don't have any official numbers, but I can say both. Yeah, Both. And you can, you can actually see why, because you have people who leave Islam like Nabil, where, okay, these arguments from Muhammad that I've heard all my life, now I've investigated them, there's no good reasons to think these, to think that these arguments actually stand up to scrutiny. But he still believes in God. He still respects Jesus. And so on. And so it's very natural for people in that position to say, okay, I still believe in God. I still believe in Jesus. Let me take a look at Christianity. It's like the natural alternative. So those guys tend to become Christians, but you also have the reaction of, I just don't trust

religious people. All they do is lie. Right. That makes sense. Have you ever had missionaries from Muslim-run countries reach out to you and tell you to call it because you're making things difficult for them over there? I've heard lots of people say that I'm going to do that. I haven't heard much from missionaries in Muslim countries say I'm ruining things. Because my message to all of them has always been, throw me under the bus if you need to, right? Like, if you're talking to someone like, oh, are you like David Wood? David Wood? No, the guy's a jerk, man. Do I act like that? I don't act like that. Yeah, we can't stand that too. Throw me under the bus in a heartbeat. And then you'll be there, you'll be their friend. What is the Islamic dilemma? I mean, I know that we could

pose a couple of dilemmas to our Mohammedan people. But by the way, can I just quickly say why I like Muhammadism better than Islam. I don't like accepting people's terms if it says something false about them, right? So I prefer to call someone who says they're of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Mormon, because I don't actually think they're of a church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints.

I don't think that. So I'll call them Mormons and not because I'm trying to be disrespectful because I think words matter. And I think Islam means peace and a Muslim. No, it doesn't. What does peace mean? Sorry, what is like?

like submission for the sake of peace. Isn't this what it means? Yeah, they start tossing peace in there because the root is related, but Islam, Islam, it means submission or surrender. That's the actual definition, yeah. Yeah, okay. So there you go.

So if someone says, well, as a Muslim or Islam, this means like someone who submits to God. I just don't grant that. So I prefer to call them Muhammadism. And Mormonism. and Mormonism, because I like to kind of attribute that group to the heretical founder. I would think of Muhammad more as a heretic, but you... Let me tell you why you're right there.

Okay. I love being told why I'm right, so take your time here. It's actually a really important point. I'm not telling people what to call them and stuff, but as far as why that's actually significant, Muslims claiming, hey, Islam just means submission, which is, that's what the word means, submission or surrender. And in its religious context, submission or surrender to Allah. They'll use that in Da'a. That's like their version of like evangelism and apologetics and stuff. Dawa.

But you'll have Muslim Dawagai, Da'is, are called, they'll use that as their argument. Hey, do you, let me ask you. Matt, do you believe in submitting to God? Yes. We've got an entire religion that's submitting to God. Why would you object to Islam when all it is is submission to God? Jews, Christians, you all believe in submitting to God.

Here's the religion that's defined in its name by submission to God. So why would you object to a religion that's all about submission to God? That's what it is. Now, why I'm telling you your right is it's Sura 4, verse 65 of the Quran. Surah 4, so everyone can look it up. Soura 4 verse 65 of the Quran. says, Allah says, to Muhammad, they can have no real faith until they make you, Muhammad, judge in all disputes between them and have no resistance against anything you've

decided and accept all of your decisions with full submission. So, Islam is the religion of submission to Allah, but the only way you can submit to Allah is by submitting to everything Muhammad says. So, I mean, just imagine that, hey, guys, you want to submit to God? Yeah, we want to submit to God. Okay, then you have to submit to everything I say and you can't question anything I say ever. If I started a religion, I would definitely do that. That's exactly what I would do if I were starting a religion, right? Hey, you believe in submission to God? Yeah, okay, then you can only submit to God by submitting to me. And that's why the submission is actually to Muhammad. And that's why it does make sense

to call it Muhammadism. I want to tell you about Hallow, which is the number one download prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Frad. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit. Hello.com slash Matt Frad. I use it. My family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers, meditations and music, including My Lofi. Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries that helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better, it helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer.

There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. Just go check it out. Hello.com slash Matt Frad. The link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories to them at night. It'll help them pray.

Fantastic. Hello.com slash Matt Frad. Okay. So what is the Islamic dilemma? What is that? Where did it come from? Because it's everywhere online right now. That's something we've been trying to popularize for a long, long time. And you can find it mentioned by Christians going way back. People who not, they're not putting it like that. They're usually not, they haven't weaponized it. We've weaponized it. We've weaponized it. But

you have had Christians all along pointing out, hey, you guys are attacking our Bible and saying that our Bible's been corrupted, your Quran doesn't say that. Why are you attacking our Bible when your Quran affirms our scriptures, which it does? So just to give the history in a nutshell, not on the Islamic dilemma, but on what the Quran says, the Quran nowhere criticizes our scriptures. There are a couple verses they point to that aren't about our scriptures being corrupted, but you can see how they're interpreting it that way, like it'll say, and they distort their scriptures and so on. If you actually read what this stuff means, it's we distort our scriptures with our speech. Because back then, it's understood, hey, Jews have their book, and it's in

Hebrew, and Christians have their book, but it's in a couple different languages by the time you get to Islam. So it's in, you know, it's in, it's in Greek, it's in Latin and so on. It's in several, it's in Syriac and so on. It's in, it's in different languages. But not in Arabic. And so if you wanted to know from a Jew, what the Torah says, you had to ask a Jew. How do you know if that Jew's telling you the truth? You don't. You can't verify. You can't verify. You can't read his book. You don't speak Hebrew. You don't speak the language necessary to understand. And so the accusation when they would have a disagreement is these people are misrepresenting their scriptures. They're distorting it. And it became, you just can't trust them. And by the way, according to the Quran, and this is something, your average Muslim doesn't even know that. It's all over the Quran. I mean, it's all over the Quran. The actual position of the Quran is, Allah has sent prophets into all the world. Every nation has had its profit. had their revelations in their language. The last people to get their revelation were the Arabs. So it's just like Allah is sending prophets over time to different groups and stuff. And

everyone on the planet had their revelation except the Arabs at that time. And that's why Muhammad is the final prophet. He's the seal of the prophets. The Arabs were just the last to get their guy. And now everyone has their guy. Everyone on the planet has their prophet and their revelation. And you even see this. And the point of that specifically was, If you don't have something in your language that you can read and understand for yourself, you're taking someone else's word for it. How do you know you're getting someone honest?

How do you know you're getting someone who's not twisting and distorting your scriptures? You need it in your own language. And so there are even parts of the Quran, Surrah 5 verse 43. Surrah five verse 43, some Jews come to Muhammad to settle the dispute because they didn't want to judge by the Torah because the penalty was stoning

and they try to avoid it. So they come to Muhammad and say, hey, what are we going to do about this? And Allah's response, it's Surah 5 verse 43. He says, why are Jews coming to you they have the Torah. Think about that. Why are they coming to you, Muhammad, when they've got the Torah.

They've got their book. Why would they come to you? You've got the book for the Arabs. And just a few verses later, Christians are told to judge by the gospel. And that's the attitude of the Quran. It's everyone has their revelation in their language. You have to follow what's revealed in your language, right? That's the actual position of the Quran.

But Muslims eventually, so the early Muslims. That's making it sound like Muhammad isn't interested. in, say, conquering the Jews or Christians, because they have their prophet. We can get to that. Oh, he wants to conquer the Jews and Christians. Okay, so that's not what he meant then, right? Presumably when alas, allegedly. That's not the reason for conquering the Jews and the Christians, right? Okay.

So if you want to follow this, everyone has their revelation. The Arabs are the last to get their revelation. Then they get the Quran in Arabic. They've got their prophet in Arabic. And then Jews, you don't need Muhammad. You've got your book. Christians, you don't need Muhammad. You've got your book.

But we don't need you guys because we've got our books. book. Now we all have our revelation, right? Muhammad, when he's in Mecca, so you got Saudi Arabia, you got what's now Saudi Arabia, then it's just the Arabian Peninsula. You got this little, little tiny town called Mecca. That's where Muhammad's formed. At first, he's surrounded by pagans. And he's telling the, but pagans knew about Jews and Christians. There were Jews and Christians in the Arabian Peninsula. And Muhammad is a caravan trader. You've got the caravans and stuff. These guys are familiar with Jews and Christians preaching monotheism. And so Muhammad comes out

when he starts preaching in Mecca, and he's saying, hey, I'm in the same line of prophets that were sent to everyone else. Allah's been sending prophets all along. And he's sent prophets to the Jews, the Christians, they had Jesus. And now I'm here for the Arabs. And when the Christians and Jews see me, because it's all pagans right now, when we run into the Jews and Christians, the Jews and Christians are going to affirm me. They're going to say, wow, you're the prophet to the Arabs that we've been waiting for because he thinks they're all on the same page that they all had their prophets and they're just waiting. Oh, we need the Arab prophet. And so he thinks the Jews and Christians are all waiting on him and that they were,

that he was prophesied in their scriptures. And he's saying, when they see me, they'll recognize me, they'll be like, oh, you're the one that we've been waiting for. So that's what he's telling his people for over a decade in Mecca. He's propped up the Jews and the Christians as the ones who are going to confirm him when they see him. Well, 620, A.D., the Muslim community moves from Mecca to Medina. They moved to Medina, and there were three Jewish tribes. And then Muhammad's like, all right, guys, I'm here. And they're, who are you?

He said, I'm the one from your scriptures. What are you talking about? Yeah, the Arab prophet from your scriptures, what are you talking about? And, I mean, he put the confidence of his people in the Jews and Christians and how they're going to react to them. And the Jews and Christians, I mean, the Jews there going, we don't know anything about you. Think about this.

if Muhammad is complete, if Muhammad and his community are completely confident that he is clearly, I mean clearly prophesied in their scriptures, and they're all saying, no, we have no idea who you are. What's that mean? It means they're lying. They know he's in their scriptures and they're lying about him because they don't want people following the truth, which means they're actually enemies of God's, not their scriptures. Their scriptures are talking about Muhammad all over the place. And they know it. And they know these Arabs can't look into it because they can't read it. And they're lying to all these Arabs to keep all these Arabs from following the truth. So these guys aren't on the same side with God. These guys are enemies of God who are trying to lead people astray. So the problem isn't the scriptures with these individuals. And these guys have to be subjugated because they're spreading their evil. And so at that point in the Quran, the message, so if you go to the Meccan passages,

here's the vibe you get from the Mechon passages. The way it looks to Muslims is going to be Muslim. Christians and Jews all united against all the polytheists, the pagans, everyone else. That's how it's going to be. Then he gets there and he finds out, nope, the Jews are saying I'm not a prophet and I'm just a joke to them. Okay. Now, and that's where it changes. It's in the crown.

Surr 5 verse 82. Then it becomes, it's going to be Christians and Muslims united against Jews and polytheists. And then he interacts with more Christians who make fun of him too. and then, okay, it's Muslims against everyone and everyone else has to be, everyone else has to be subjugated. It's that meme. Am I a joke to you?

Yep. You can't have that. Okay, so this narrative, I hadn't ever heard this before, but that shouldn't surprise anybody because I haven't looked into this a great deal. This idea that he was of the opinion that the Jews and the Christians would, what,

recognize him as the final prophet or is that not part of the narrative in the beginning? That's exactly what we're supposed to do. In the beginning? We're all waiting. Yeah, everyone is waiting. Everyone's basically waiting. And then they...

This new prophet's going to, to show up and he's going to be the final prophet and then we've got all our profit we've got all the prophets then they're going to the jews they don't see him in the scriptures they think the jews are lying same thing happens with the christians so this whole narrative that you're telling me is this in the koran or is this what muslims everything i said is in the koran now it's hard to i mean sometimes you need to go outside of the koran to understand the historical background of various situations and stuff like this but yes everything i just said is in the koran about everyone having their revelations um Muhammad being the last to receive his revelation um and at that point

It's Jews, you judge by your book. Christians, you judge by your book. We have our book. And now we've all got a book in our own language, and that way no one can deceive us. And is the idea that the Jews and Christians, what, the Torah and is it Gia, is that what they call? Ingeal, sorry. We'll sign note. Ingeal is the Arabic transliteration of Eugenian.

Oh, okay. Gospel. Yeah. So is the idea that these books point to the truth of him being the final prophet? The books are good as gold. You can't trust the people. I see. But guess what?

Muhammad's followers aren't in a position to read them. To check the books. So they're taking his word for it. So the original position of the position of the Quran is not that Jews and Christians have corrupt scriptures. The position of the Quran is everyone has reliable scriptures, but these guys lie about it, they misinterpret it, they distort it, and your average person can't read so they don't know they're being lied to.

And give us some proof of this. I mean, you've referenced it, but I mean, how certain are you that the Quran is saying that these scriptures haven't been perverted? That's all the Quran ever says and it never says anything else. Cool, right? And so, I mean, you have it as clear, the clearest claims in the Quran

because there's lots of the Quran that's confusing. The clearest claims in the Quran are claims about the Jewish and Christian scriptures. So I'll give a number of references that people can look up, some of the important ones. So Surat 2 verse 85.

This is, Muhammad's talking to the Jews of Medina. So this is the first chapter revealed after Muhammad moves to Medina and he's interacting with the Jews. Now, the situation you had with the Jews in Medina is you had three Jewish tribes and two Arab tribes. Two of the Jewish tribes were allies of one Arab tribe and the other Jewish tribe was an ally of the other Arab tribe. Well, those two Arab tribes constantly fought. And so what would happen is you'd have two Arab tribes fighting and then you'd have Jews on each side and they'd end up fighting each other. and then they'd be taking captives ransom holding captives for ransom and so on

and the Jews no matter which tribe they were in they would ransom their fellow Jews if they've been taken captive and he's like why are you why are you fighting them to begin with you're not supposed to be fighting your fellow Jews and then having to having to ransom them and stuff but suratoo verse 85 he he he starts off in verse 84 he's bringing up hey how come you guys are doing stuff that you're not supposed to do according to the Torah yeah you're supposed to ransom you're captive, but you shouldn't have been fighting your captives and stuff. And then after criticizing them for being hypocrites, he says, do you then believe in part of your book and not in all of it?

He says, if you only believe in parts and not all of it, I'll send you to hell. And it's like, wait a minute, if you had a corrupt book, how would Allah be telling you to believe in all of it and not just parts? Because what every Muslim will tell you is, you need to go to the Torah and find all the parts that agree with Islam. Yeah, today they'll say that. You need to find all the parts that agree with Islam. Those are the parts you're supposed to believe.

And wait a minute, if I do what you say, modern Muslim telling Jews and Christians to just believe in the parts of our book that align with Islam, your God says he'll send us to hell for doing that. He says, I will send you to hell if you do not believe in all of it. And you find this throughout that entire chapter. So it's suratou verse, you can read all of 40 to 44. in that section, so I'm talking all about Surah 2, chapter 2, the longest chapter of the Quran. Versus 40 to 44, you get to verse 85. That's where he says, if you only believe in parts of your book, if you only believe in parts of your book, I'll send you to hell. You have to believe in all of it. Then it's verse 89, it's verse 91, it's verse 97, it's 101, it's 121, over and over and over again.

He's saying that you have to believe in your book. And in these passages, he's also making it the main argument And this is throughout the Quran, the main argument for why Jews and Christians should believe in Muhammad and the Quran. And there's not even a close second. The main argument that the Quran gives for why Jews and Christians should accept Muhammad as a prophet is that he's affirming our scriptures. It's, hey, I'm affirming your scriptures. Why aren't you affirming me? What's wrong with you? Now, keep in mind, if Muslims are right and he's just saying, oh, the parts that agree with me, I'm affirming.

Well, anyone could do that. what one it's already a bad argument it's already a bad argument if i say hey i affirm your scriptures therefore you should affirm me every cult leader ever says that right hey i affirm your bible well no thank you because you have all this extra stuff that contradicts our bible right so understand just me saying hey i affirm your book is not a good reason it's way way way way way worse it's a thousand times worse if i'm not even affirming your book i'm saying hey you should affirm my revelations because i'm affirming your book oh by the way i'm not really affirming your book i'm just affirming the parts that agree with me that would be the dumbest argument ever it's the main

argument of the Quran. He uses this over and over and over again. Believe in Muhammad, believe in the Quran, because he's affirming your scriptures, all of it, right? So you have those kinds of passages. Those are, those are all over the place in the Quran. You have passages where Allah brags about no one being able to change his words. So, surah 6, verses 114 to 115, Surah 18, verse 27 says, Surah 18, verse 27 says, recite what has been revealed to you of the book of your Lord. There is none who can change his words. It's very strange. if you tell me every revelation he's ever come up with before the Quran has been corrupted. Like what my friend Anthony Rogers said, imagine a heart, imagine you need heart surgery.

So you go to a heart surgeon, you start, you talk to this heart surgeon. He says, yeah, I'm the greatest heart surgeon of all time. I've never lost a patient. I've never lost a patient. 100% success rate. And then you go and check his record. And every patient he's ever had died on the operating room table. It's like, are you going to trust that guy?

Right? It's like, that's what Allah is bragging. No one can change his words. It's 100% success rate. And then Muslims say, nope, every revelation he ever had before that has been corrupted. It's like, okay, why am I going to trust this one? Especially if this is the one where he's bragging that no one can change his words. So you have all these passages about no one being able to change Allah's words.

And then you have where he's specifically interacting with Jews and Christians and what they're supposed to judge by. I already mentioned sort of 5 verse 43. Jews come to Muhammad to settle a dispute, to judge a dispute. Allah's response is, why are they coming to you when they have the Torah? and he's completely serious about that. The historical background is found in the Hadith. You have the whole story. Jews come to Muhammad.

They say, hey, settle this dispute. They don't want to judge by the Torah because the judgment is stoning. Even though by that time, Jews don't stone. That was all connected to the temple system and everything. So they're supposed to look for some other punishment. It's like if I ask Muslims, hey, why aren't you killing apostates in a different country? Well, we don't run that country. It's different rules for if we're not in charge of the state, right?

so well guess what that was true of jews too they didn't carry out these they didn't carry out these punishments um so they come to mohammed how should we judge and mohammed they put mohammed on the judgment cushion so that's how you signified who's judging a dispute there's some special judgment cushion so mohammed sits on the cushion and they say hey how are you going to judge this dispute mohammed says bring me the Torah and the jews bring out the Torah mohammed gets off the judgment cushion, puts the Torah on the judgment cushion. This is Sunan Abu Dahlad 4449, for anyone wants to look it up. Muhammad gets off the judgment cushion, puts the Torah on the judgment cushion and says to the Torah, speaking directly to the Torah, I believe in you and in the one who

revealed you. It's very strange to say to a corrupt book. Like, I believe that there are true claims in the Quran. I would never say, I believe in you and in the one who revealed you. Why? It's filled with a bunch of stuff that I don't believe is from God. So the fact that Muhammad is saying, to a copy of the Torah, I believe in you and in the one who revealed you. It's pretty clear what he's saying. And then the Torah is the judge of their dispute. And he can't read this Torah. So he doesn't realize the contradictions that exist between the Torah and the...

Nope. He's just confident that this is the inspired, preserved authority in the word of God. No one can change Allah's words. You can misinterpret it. You can lie about it. But you're not changing the book. Allah has guaranteed that he protects his books. So that book has to be as good as gold.

Again, it's just a few verses later. surah five verse 47 which says let the people of the gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed they're in and says we're rebels against Allah if Christians are rebels against Allah if we do not judge by the gospel that's a very strange thing to say if we've got a corrupt book he should be saying don't judge by your book you need to judge by the Quran and the very next verse after that 548 it says that the Quran confirms the previous books and is a guardian over them you look at context How does the Quran guard the previous books? When you got Jews and Christians who don't want to follow their books,

the Quran said, what do you don't? Get back to your books. Get back to your books. Stop avoiding your books. That's the constant criticism of Jews and Christians throughout the Quran is we're not following our books. Never one word about shame on you for following your corrupt books. Never, not one word, ever. Right.

And so that's 548. You go to later in the same passage. You get to chapter 5, verse 68, same chapter. verse 68 in verse 68 Allah says to Muhammad say oh people of the book you have no ground to stand upon unless you stand fast by the Torah the gospel and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord we have no ground to stand upon unless we stand upon our scriptures that doesn't make sense if he thought our scriptures have been corrupted yeah so you have tons of passages like that all over the place and then you get down to so the Torah and the gospel are still authoritative for Jews and Christians

We're not supposed to judge by the Quran. The Quran's not for us. The Quran's for Arabs, right? So it's authoritative for us. Our scriptures are authoritative for us. Interestingly, they're authoritative even for Muhammad. Because you get to Surat 10, verse 94. And Allah says to Muhammad,

if you are in doubt as to what we have revealed to you, ask those who read the book before you. The book meaning? The Jewish and Christian scriptures. Okay. Because Christians and Jews are called the people of the book. We've got a book. Like, what book? What book? Muslims? What books is the Quran keep saying that we have that we're the people of, right? Bible. So, so Muhammad is told, if you are in doubt as to what we've revealed to you, ask those who read the book before you. And it's like, wait a minute. So if Muhammad's having doubts, what's he supposed to do with these doubts? He's supposed to go to the people of the book and say, hey, I just received a revelation. I'm in doubt. I don't understand it. Help me. Yeah, I just received a revelation. I'm in doubt as to whether it's from Allah. Because keep on, there are Muslims will say, yeah, but he never doubted or something.

I mean, Muhammad's first impression of his revelations was that they were demonic. He had to be talked out of that by his wife and her cousin. Where is that stated? That's in Ibn Assad. Yeah, so you've got, yeah, and by the way, that's early on. Muhammad, he's in a cave, he's meditating in a cave and stuff. He starts getting these revelations. He thinks he's demon-possessed.

He tries to hurl himself off a cliff because he doesn't want his tribe making fun of him for being demon-possessed. So he tries to hurl himself off a cliff. Whatever's in the cave stops him from hurling himself off a cliff. and then he thinks the demon's chasing him and he runs home to his wife, which is weird. It's like, if I thought a demon's after me, I'm not going to my wife.

I'm going as far away from my wife as possible. He goes right to his wife, protect me, protect me, right? So he goes to his wife and she's like, no, you're not possessed, you're a prophet. And he's like, oh, I'm a prophet? Yeah, you're a prophet. That's way better.

So just all Muslims of the world should know that their confidence in Islam doesn't come from Muhammad and what he thought about his revelations. It's what his wife had no idea, had no idea what he encountered in the cave. And she confirmed, nope, you're actually a prophet. You're a prophet.

And so anyway, we know Muhammad had doubts, had doubts along the way. But regardless, whether that's, whether Muhammad actually had doubts or Allah's just speaking hypothetically in case you have doubts at some point, the only way Muhammad could deal with his doubts was to make sure that his revelations line up with the revelations of the Jews and Christians. That makes zero sense if our scriptures. been corrupted. Because then why would your revelations line up with corrupt scriptures? Yes.

If the only way your revelations would line up with corrupt scriptures, if your revelations are also corrupt. So the fact that Allah himself is making our scriptures the standard. And this is important. Muslims think the Quran is the standard over everything else. And if everything else doesn't line up with the Quran, so much for all this other stuff. That's not what the Quran says. The previous scriptures are the standard. And the Quran is judged by this standard. And if the Quran doesn't line up with the Jewish and Christian scriptures that's so much for the Quran. That's the actual position of the Quran. And so that's what you find when you go to the Muslim sources. And that's the early understanding of the previous scriptures. In fact, there's a hadith. It's Jami at Termit

2653. Jami at Termit 2653. Anyone can type that in, find the Hadith. Muhammad is complaining that his followers are going to forget a lot of the meaning of the verses of the Quran. They're not going to understand them. They're going to be reading them that they're not going to understand them. And he says, this is the time when knowledge is departing from my community. One of his companions sort of raises his hands, hey, what are you talking about? We're all reciting the Quran. How can knowledge depart from us? We've got the, we've got the most recent, most up-to-date book. We've got the cutting edge stuff. How is knowledge going to depart from us? Muhammad says, may you be bereaved of your mother? He says, I used to think that you were one of the

knowledgeable people of this community. And he goes, the Jews and Christians have the tour in the gospel, don't they? Look at them. But, but I mean, think about that. Hey, we have a reliable book from God. How can knowledge depart from our community? Mahm's response says, look at the Jews and Christians. That response makes no sense if our scriptures have been corrupted. If our scripture has been corrupted, then the reason knowledge has departed from us is because we have corrupted scriptures. But he's trying to explain to his followers how you can have completely reliable scriptures and be wrong. And you guys are going to be wrong about the Quran. But we have the Quran. Yeah, the Jews and Christians have the Torah in the Gospel, don't they? So what is the actual position of Muhammad

and the Quran? The actual position of Muhammad and the Quran is we have reliable scriptures from God. We just, we're misinterpreting them. We're misapplying them. We've forgotten the meaning of them. We ignore parts and so on. Those are the criticisms of our books according to the Quran. We have books that are good as gold and we distort them with our speech. Surah 3 verse 78 gives the actual position. It says we twist our scriptures with our tongues. We, we misrepresent them. So that's the actual position of Muhammad and the Quran. The problem arose because Muslims are expanding the empire in the years after Muhammad and they run in, they keep running into Jews and Christians. And then they're reading the other scriptures. And you have Jews and Christians who

are joining the Muslims and they have their scriptures and so on. And so they're going, wait a minute, this doesn't line up with the Quran at all. And then what do you do at that point? Muhammad put his stamp of approval on our books. Allah put his stamp of approval on our books, but our books are not what the Quran says. Well, at that time, you can't say Muhammad was just wrong and Allah didn't know what he's talking about, you get your head chopped off. So you just have to change it to, oh, your books have been corrupted, even though it's never what the Quran says. And from that time on, you've always had, Bible's been corrupted, Bible's been corrupted, Bible's been corrupted. And that, that went on because you very rarely have, up until recently, you very rarely have lots of Christians and so on

looking into what the Muslim sources say. And so people just took for granted. Muslims are saying our books been corrupted, and that's what the Quran says. Oh, okay, the Quran says our book's been corrupted. And it's just recently that people start going through it. Here's every single time the Quran mentions our previous scripture. Show us where it says one word about our scripture being corrupted. In fact, this was several years ago. I put out a challenge to Muslims. I said, I said the Quran mentions the gospel 12 times specifically. It talks about like scriptures of Christians like, you know, elsewhere and stuff like it mentions gospel 12 times. Show me one verse where the Quran says anything. negative about my book that it's been corrupted or something like that. I'll bow down and recite the

shahada. Got tons of views. No one's ever been able to show me one single verse. In fact, in a follow-up, I said, I'll go through every single verse in the Quran that mentions the gospel. I went through every single one. Some of them are just Christians have the gospel, so it's not telling you whether it's reliable or not. But every verse is either positive or neutral. It's either positive saying Allah affirms it and we have to judge by it and so on and it's still as good as gold. Or it's just neutral. It's just saying Christians have a gospel. There's not one word of criticism about the gospel ever, which if Muslims are right and the Quran's saying that our books have been corrupted,

like, you guys should be able to show me a verse, right? Did anyone try? I've done multiple debates now on the Islamic dilemma. And I have to keep saying they keep arguing based on like their later commentaries and well, this later commentator from a thousand years later, says this and this guy says this and I'm going, I've just, I spent my entire opening statement quoting nothing but your God and your prophet. And I have to tell the Muslims, Muslims, look at what's going on here. I'm quoting your God and your prophet. He's quoting Bart Erman. He's quoting this. He's quoting this. He's quoting this. He's quoting that. He's quoting

over in five seconds. All you would have to do is say, chapter such and such, verse so and so, your book has been corrupted. This debate should be over in five seconds. And this guy will talk for 20 minutes. And he's quote, again, he's quoting Bart Ehrman and all these other people. It's like, How are you not kidding? Your God and your prophet are on my side of this debate. I could see you saying something like, I seem to have more respect for your prophet than you. I do. I say that all the time.

My last debate I did on this, I started off and I said, this is not a debate between David Wood. Who was I debating? This is not a debate between David Wood and John Fontaine, his convert. This is a debate between Team Allah and Team Dawah. Wow.

On Team Allah, we have Allah, Muhammad, the angel Gabriel, because he says he confirms our scriptures, and even the Jin, the Jin confirm our scriptures, and me. We're team Allah and your team, Dawa. So that's where we're at right now. Wow, that's fascinating.

So lay out the dilemma very succinctly for us, for those who are trying to keep up. Okay, so once you understand and go through all the passages where the Quran affirms our scriptures, what your average Muslim thinks, which your average Muslim thinks, is that the Quran affirms the initial inspiration of our scriptures, but not their preservation and authority.

They've been corrupted at some point. In other words, and correct me if I'm wrong, But my understanding is that Christ received this revelation from God, taught it. It was in pristine form. But Matthew Mark, Luke, and John, Paul, who are these people? These people have corrupted it. This is, this tends to be the apologetic I receive, I hear. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, total nonsense according to, because here's the thing. According to the Quran. Because Allah says we still have the inspired, preserved, authoritative in Geel. In the seventh century. In the seventh century. Right. And it's all the way down in Arabia.

Okay. So. Truthfully is a groundbreaking Catholic AI. built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith with clarity and confidence. Whether you're navigating a tough conversation, deepening your understanding, or looking for daily spiritual guidance, Truthly is your companion on the journey. It's like if Chat GPT went through OCIA, got baptized and made it its mission to proclaim the truth of the Catholic Church. But Truthly is more than just a Q&A tool,

its formation in your pocket. Take audio courses on topics like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Eucharist, purgatory and why the Catholic Church is the one founded by Jesus Christ. Each course is designed to be accessible, engaging and deeply rooted in the teachings of the church. You'll also receive daily audio reflections, short, powerful meditations to help you grow in prayer and stay grounded in your spiritual life. Already downloaded by thousands of people worldwide, Truthly is transforming the way we learn, share and live our faith. One question, one course and one prayer at a time. Start your seven-day free trial today. Download Truthly on the App Store.

Once you understand what the Quran really says that it's affirming our scriptures, not just the inspiration, the initial inspiration, as Muslims think, but their preservation and their continuing authority. This puts Muslims in a dilemma because we either, there are only two possibilities here, two, that's why it's a dilemma. either we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative, word of God, or we don't. Meaning the Quran? Is that what you mean? No, I mean.

The Christians. Okay. So the Bible, basically. At the very least, Torah and gospel, right? You could make a very good case that it's talking about the Old Testament in general and the New Testament in general. But just for argument's sake, at the very least, it's the Torah, as understood by Jews, and the Ingeal, the gospel, as understood by Christians.

And from the second century onward, if you were talking about a text, you can talk about someone preaching the gospel, or you talk about Jesus preaching the gospel or something like that. But if you're talking about a book that's being read, from the second century on, the four gospels were treated as a unit called the fourfold gospel. It was treated as singular.

And like even Jewish rabbis would refer to the book of the Christians as the gospel. I didn't realize that. Thanks, yeah. So once you understand that, And by the way, you know, for, you can respond to objections for Muslims who will say, no, what if it's talking about the gospel of Judas or like one of these later heretical gospels? Guess what? None of those line up with Islam either.

None of them. So if you think, yeah, if you want to pick some later. This makes it worse for you. Yeah. Yeah. And those are typically further away from Islam than the Christian gospels are, right? But yeah, you will have that, oh, it's a, it says gospel, not gospels and so on. Okay, yeah, but the gospels were called that from the second century on.

I see. them together into fourfold gospel or just the gospel. And if you want to say it means something else, pick one. If you want to see it means one of the four gospels, pick one. I'll run the exact same argument. If you want to say it refers to any other book, pick one. I'll run it, right? But the four gospels are what we have that goes back to the first century. It's the only candidate for what was available in the first century. And we know it was called, it was named the fourfold gospel or just the gospel, right? But any Muslim can pick anything you want. the same argument would work.

But if you're just talking to Christian, this is how I'll explain it to Muslims. I'm like, okay, if I go to you, Muslim, and I say, hey, I affirm the Quran, I affirm the inspiration of the Quran, I affirm the preservation of the Quran, I affirm the authority of the Quran, judged by the Quran.

You have no ground to stand upon unless you stand fast by the Quran and stuff. If I meant something else, then I'm just a horrible communicator. If I'm saying all that to you and you think I mean the Quran, and I mean something else, I'm just a terrible communicator.

And that's what, normally in debates, I'll start off with a ton of Quran versus where Allah affirms that his commands are perfectly clear. And that way, if you say he means something else when he's not clear, and that's off limits to you, you're supposed to believe that Allah is clear in his commands. And so if he's telling Jews and Christians to judge by their scriptures, he has to mean it, or else he wouldn't be clear.

So you could put in another dilemma. Either Allah's clear or is not clear. If he's clear, then he's affirming our scriptures. If he's not affirming our scriptures, then he's unclear, and the Quran is wrong. So which way do you want the Quran to be wrong? So you can make a ton of different Islamic dilemmas. but the main way we use it is once you understand what the Quran is saying

there are two possibilities. Either Christians, you could say Jews to either we have the inspired preserved authoritative word of God or we don't. It's one or the other if you say no you've got something that was never the word of God or you've got something that's been corrupted or something like that

okay then the alternative is correct so we either have the inspired preserved authoritative word of God or we don't let's examine those two possibilities If we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, Islam is false. Because Islam contradicts what we have, Old Testament or New Testament, on basic doctrines. The Quran contradicts what we have on basic doctrines. So if we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, Islam is false.

Other horn of the dilemma. if we don't have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, got something corrupt or something like that. If we don't have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, Islam is false because Muhammad and the Quran affirm the inspiration, the preservation, and the authority of what we have. So if we have the inspired, preserved authoritative word of God, Islam is false. If we don't have the inspired preserved authoritative word of God, Islam is false.

Either way, Islam is false. therefore Islam is false and we we love that argument because you know I'll bring up like you know I'll go after Muhammad in terms of his character and having sex with a nine-year-old girl and taking the wife of his own adopted son and all these things that we can criticize Muhammad for and show that he's not the perfect noble character that Muslims say but not all Christians are comfortable going after that sort of stuff they don't want to say to their Muslim friend hey your prophet had sex with nine-year-old girl what's up with that they don't they don't want to. The Islamic dilemma is something anyone can be comfortable with,

and Christians don't even have to bring it up. If you're in a discussion with a Muslim, and you say, hey, I believe in Jesus, I believe he died on the cross and rose from the dead. Muslim says, well, I don't believe that. And you start talking, they eventually have to say your book's been corrupted. Anything you can show a Muslim from the Bible and say, look, it says right here, Jesus is the son of God. Well, in Islam, he's not the son of God. He's just a prophet. In fact, the Quran says that if you call someone the son of God, like the universe is ready to break apart. That's how serious it is that you're committing like this, this horrible blasphemy and this unforgivable sin of shirt. So, okay, he's not the son of God over here. He's the son of God in

my scripture, where your scripture's been corrupted. Oh, really? It's been corrupted? Well, why does your God say, and you can just take them through the Islamic dilemma? So it's something that will always, always, always come up in discussions between Christians and Muslims. It has to come up. If you can show anything from the Bible that contradicts the Quran, they have to say your book's been corrupted. So it's always going to come up. It's going to lead right into the Islamic dilemma. Hey, I find it interesting. You just said my book's been corrupted. I was wondering if my book's been corrupted why your God says this here. So what is what is he saying? Sir 5 verse 47 that I'm supposed to judge by the gospel. Because notice, if I'm supposed to judge by the gospel, well,

Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross for sins and rose from the dead. But I'm not supposed to believe that. So what am I supposed to do? Oh, you're supposed to throw that out. It's been corrupted. Well, why does he tell me to judge by the gospel? Right. If you're telling me to judge by the Quran. The Quran tells me to judge by the gospel. You're telling me to judge by the Quran. What am I supposed to do here? Am I supposed to listen to Allah or am I supposed to listen to you? Who speaks for Islam here? And that's what you constantly put. Your God and your prophet are telling me one thing. You're saying the opposite. Who speaks for Islam? Whoa. You guys are the ones who are making stuff up here. I'm doing what your God says. And so it's very, very helpful.

You don't have to be worried about hurting the Muslim's feelings by attacking Muhammad or something like that, although I obviously believe there's definitely a place for that. Just as far as regular Christians having discussions with regular Muslims, it's got to come up. When you start bringing up what the Quran says about our scriptures, when you start showing them earlier when I was talking about this light switch moment, they've never heard this before. It put it this way. If they started hearing about it now, it's because of us, because we're popularizing the Islamic dilemma. So they're starting to find out what the Quran says about the previous scriptures.

I was shocked because I was interacting with Nabil early on. He's very knowledgeable, very good, very good arguments and stuff like that. when I started debating it would be after debate and I'd be talking to Muslims in the crowd afterwards and they would be coming up and say yeah I believe in Islam because of this and I go what? Where are you getting that from? And they have no idea and I would say in fact the Quran says the exact opposite of what you're saying

I show them they have no clue what I'm talking about. I'd be standing in the middle of 10 Muslims none of them had any clue what I'm talking about right so they do not know what's in their scriptures we think they know we think they're very knowledgeable because you know you see them dressing in a certain way and heading the mosque and taking the pilgrimage they know their practice as well They do not know the contents of their book, like terrible, terrible understanding of their book. And so it's kind of wide open for Christians to learn an argument, learn it well, go through these things.

And you're kind of trying to force that light switch moment of, huh, I said his book's been corrupted. I've heard that my entire life from this guy, my leader, and this Christian is showing me dozens of verses where Allah says the exact opposite of what this guy told me. why am I listening to this guy? Why am I listening to this guy when the Quran says something completely different? You're looking for them to go, maybe I need to not trust everything this guy says. Maybe I need to look into this for myself, because that's when he's on his way.

That's when he's on his way out of Islam. Okay, then I would think if I was a Mohammedan and I was trying to find an escape hatch to this, I would say, fine, yes, that's true. The gospel was not perverted at the time of Muhammad in the 7th century, but you know we but now it has been in the eighth or the ninth century the Christians have perverted it and that's how I get out of it because the gospel that Muhammad was pointing to didn't claim that Christ died on the cross the Torah I'm pointing to perhaps didn't say that

Aaron built the golden calf which I think is another contradiction correct in the Torah yeah so why not say that well that is a that is an approach some Muslims take and it's just it's based on ignorance. Guess what? We have copies of the Torah and the gospel from before and after the time of Muhammad. Yeah. Yeah. What if they tried to say, well, sure, but perhaps there was two types of gospels floating around, one that was corrupt and one that wasn't. And the mainstream one that wasn't corrupt said, didn't say that Christ died on the cross, but the corrupt one made it through history somehow. Does that make sense? Yeah, that was the most recent debate I had on the Islamic dilemma. I need to watch it. I apologize. I haven't watched it. I really want it now. The most recent

debate I had on the Islamic dilemma, they kind of bit the bullet and they took that approach. Really? And his actual argument was funny that I would come up with it without having thought about it much. That is funny. You came up with an argument that a Muslim apologists has spent years working on and went down in flames massively. Because during like the cross-examination, I kept asking him. Because keep in mind, he has no record of some Torah and some gospel that agree with Islam, right? There's no record of that. And you want to argue that the gospel only refers to the gospel of Jesus, and that's a book that Jesus had, and not something else, not The Four Gospels or something

like that. So I kind of, during the cross-examination, so his argument was, the Torah was revealed to Moses, and then it was lost, and it was replaced by the five books of the Pentateuth that Jews have had since then, right? So the original Torah was lost, and it was replaced by, these weren't corrupted versions. They were just replacement. It's something else. It's something different. It's not from God at all, the Torah that Jews have, right?

So the real Torah revealed to Moses, that was lost, and was replaced by something else. And I was just, I was waiting for him to say that because I was going to say, wait a minute. In, in the Quran, it says that Jesus affirmed the Torah between his hands. Said that Jesus affirmed the Torah between his hands, which means he still has it. So I was about to jump on that. And then he says, but the Muslim says, but then it was re-revealed to Jesus. The Torah was re-revealed to Jesus. The Torah was lost and then it was gone for centuries.

But then it was re-revealed to Jesus. And the gospel was revealed to Jesus. but then it was lost, right? Somehow both books were available. Now, this is interesting because he acknowledges that the Quran nowhere says one word of criticism about the Torah and the gospel. He's acknowledging. In other words, he's agreeing with what I just said about the Torah, about what the Quran says about the Torah and the gospel. Yes, it affirms the inspiration, preservation, and continuing authority of the Torah and the gospel.

He didn't reinterpret those verses the way most Muslims will. And so during the cross-X, I sort of got here, here's. Here's what you have to say if you want to hold that position. And most people can just hear this and go, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my entire life, right? No offense to you. You just had to come up with it off the top of your head. But he wrote an entire book on this, the Muslim was debating.

John Fontaine, get the book, everyone. I encourage you to get the book. So here's the position. The Torah was real to Moses. It was lost. Then Jews started using this other book that was a replacement, the Pentateau. You get down to the time of Christ. Allah re-reveals the Torah to Jesus.

So there's a reliable Torah during the time of Jesus and the reliable Ingeal during the time of Jesus. I asked, do we have any record of either one of these books? Do we have any manuscript of any of these books? He said, no. There's no manuscript evidence for either the Torah of Moses or the Ingeal of Jesus. Not one manuscript of either one of these, right? But somehow you get down to 7th century Medina, one little place, one tiny little place, in the Arabian Peninsula, and he says they still had both.

They still had the Torah of Moses, and they still had the Ingeal of Jesus. Why? Because Muhammad's pointing to the Tor and saying, yeah, I believe in you and the one who revealed you. So you got to have the, that can't be the five, that can't be the Pentateuch. Right. That's the authoritative. If Mohammed says he believed in it, then that means they have the reliable, authoritative Torah of Moses. And he's also. It can't be Matthew, Markleuk and John.

It also cannot be Matthew Markleuk and John. As far as the engeal, yeah, it's the engeal of Jesus. So the book of Jesus, a book that was revealed to Jesus, that's the angel. It's not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So for some reason, we have no record, not one manuscript of either the Torah or the gospel for their entire history until Medina, when they both suddenly appear, Muhammad affirms their inspiration, preservation, and authority. These books are filled with prophecies about Muhammad, and then they disappear without a trace.

and we have not, the only evidence they existed is the Muslim sources saying that they existed. Fortunately, most people react like you. Are you, are you crazy? Are you crazy? Is this the point he actually tried to make? That's his argument. Oh, that's his argument. And so think about, but think about how bad this is because I pointed this out. So we have no manuscript evidence that these things ever existed. No quotes from them, nothing ever. They disappear without a trace. Then they amazingly, keep in mind, it's both of them. It's both these different books and they both appear in one place in the middle of the Arabian desert, right? They both appear. Muhammad affirms their inspiration, preservation authority. These are the books that can supposedly contain all

these prophecies about Muhammad. Then they're lost. So sadly, that's why we, that's why we can't show the prophecies about Muhammad in the scriptures, because they were lost. And so I had to point out, it's like, do you realize the Quran gives two main arguments for Jews and Christians? I mentioned one. The main argument of the Quran by far, for why Jews and Christians are supposed to believe in Muhammad is that Muhammad and the Quran are affirming our scriptures. affirming our scriptures and the other argument that it gives for why Jews and Christians

should believe in Muhammad is that our scriptures contain prophecies of him so notice how this actually works right the Quran Muhammad and the Quran are affirming our scriptures and our scriptures are affirming him in return with prophecies

but Torah and gospel sadly we have no record of them which means Jews and Christians we have no reason to believe in Muhammad the Quran this is why you should believe in Muhammad and now Muslim apologists, oh, no, no, you don't have those books anymore. Okay, so we have no reason to

believe in Muhammad. You just took Allah's main arguments. Allah had all eternity to say, how am I going to convince Jews and Christians to believe in Muhammad? Well, Muhammad's going to affirm their scriptures, and they're going to be prophecies about Muhammad and their scriptures. And now Muslims, you don't have those scriptures. So Islam, as far as why we should believe in it, we're supposed to, we're supposed to think, oh, during that time, there were scriptures that we can't examine, that we don't have. We have no record of them ever existing, but we're supposed to believe, that Allah affirms them, and therefore we're supposed to believe them, we're supposed to believe in Allah and Muhammad,

and we're supposed to believe that these books contain all these prophecies about Muhammad. So Islamic apologetics is now the biggest case ever of, trust me, bro. Wow. And did you know about this dilemma when you were with your friend Nabil? I wish I had known about it. It would have been like a thousand times easier. Because when Nabil was criticized, I knew a couple passages of the Quran. and you hadn't put it together.

You can't underestimate how the power of just being told one thing all your life is. So you've got to be sympathetic to Muslims from hearing this stuff all their lies. But guess what? That even affects Christians. If you hear all, if you hear the entire time you're looking into Islam, the Quran says your book's been corrupted. The Quran says your book's been corrupted. Then when you read, judge by the gospel, you're still thinking of that in light of what you've been told. Oh, there must be all these other verses that say the Bible's been corrupted or something like that.

The Torah's been corrupted. the gospel's been corrupted. There must be in there somehow. It's telling you judged by the gospel here. It must mean something else. It must mean something else. And so I wasn't using it then. And so when Nabil's questioning the reliability of the New Testament,

we're just doing like textual criticism stuff. It's like, okay, you've heard about all these textual variants and stuff. They don't change the meaning. Examine any manuscript ever. You never get to a Jesus who wasn't the son of God, who didn't die on the cross, who didn't rise from that. You get nothing that affirms Islam. You need massive corruption of basic doctrines for Islam to be true.

That's what you never have with textual criticism. You get, oh, this one says this word, this one says this word. This is a spelling variant. You never get to anything that corrupts Christian doctrine. But that's what you need. So textual criticism does not help you. It destroys your position. But I mean, how much easier, because we're sitting there studying this stuff.

How much easier would it have been to what? You're saying my Bible's been corrupted? You're saying my Bible's been changed? Well, let's see what your God says here, buddy. think it would have made things a lot easier back then and that's why I'm trying to get everyone else to learn this so they can take the easy road and it seems like you think it's as formidable

as it sounds because sometimes you come up with these like cute ways to argue against the Catholic or the Protestant or the atheist or what have you and then you realize pretty quickly okay the reason it's cute and memorable is because it's actually not as formidable as you were hoping that it would be

but in your experience and in the reaction you've been receiving from Muslim apologists do you still believe it to be as strong as you thought it was when you first heard it or is the kind of the Muslim community beginning to do a better job at responding to it? No, the more they respond,

the more confidence they give you that it's a good argument. Because keep in mind, you know, when we're sitting there reading it, we're sitting there reading the Quran, I can't find anything where it says our book's been corrupted at all. All I ever find is a law affirming

the inspiration, preservation, authority of our books. But until you, for years, Muslims were avoiding it. They only start paying attention when the Muslim, the like average Muslims start asking their Dalwa guys how to respond because hey these Christians are bringing up this argument we don't know how to respond yeah they will ignore something as long as they can okay because in their mind like like take something like uh take something more basic like

like uh Muhammad and Aisha yeah when we started criticizing Muhammad and Aisha their tendency was to not respond because in their mind as soon as you respond now your fans are hearing about it too guess what your fans may have never heard of that and so you don't have to you don't have anything to explain to them if your fans never yeah your fans yeah exactly your fans if your fans don't know about it then they're not going to be confused by it the moment you acknowledge it in a debate and you try to defend it which that was my goal back in the day i was like i'll bring this up in a debate mohammed and ayesha and i don't care if he if he if he i mean i want him to defend it right but i don't care how good the audience thinks that his response is i care more that the audience hears that

this is an issue because then they're going to start thinking about it right um so that there are all these issues that they're not aware of, and my goal was early debates was to get them to be aware of these things and their sources so that they start thinking up. Because what I've realized is they never heard any of this stuff. They never heard any of this stuff about Muhammad. And it's like that with the Islamic dilemma. For years, they just ignored it. Or they would just say, oh, come on, these dumb Christians, they think this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how they respond. And so fortunately, we pushed it hard enough to where their fans start going to them, hey, we don't know how to answer this.

What does this first mean? Why does this first say this? And then they start making videos. But still, you know, if this is just going back, not like back to last year when we're challenging them to debates and so on, it's, I don't know what their responses are going to be once they really, really start, ah, we're going to try and respond to this. And so you always have to wonder, are they going to come up with some great response that I haven't thought of?

Maybe. Yeah, yeah. That could be something I'm totally missing. And so what do you do? You go in a debate. Well, guess what? The responses are getting dumber and dumber and dumber as we're refuting and they're trying new things. Nothing's working. Nothing's working. So they're building everyone's confidence in the Islamic dilemma when they're trying to refute it in debate.

Out of all of the bad responses to the Islamic dilemma, what's the best of the bad ones? There are basically, there are three kind of broad categories of responses. We just got the, we just got the third one, which is, yes, it is affirming inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Torah in the gospel, but it's not the tour in the gospel you have, right? That was kind of the third approach that someone could take. It's talking about something else, not what you have. But there are basically three approaches. One is extremely rare, but I have seen it. But I actually think some version of that would be the strongest response. But there have been Muslims who say, yes, the Quran is affirming the inspiration, preservation, and authority of your scriptures.

And so Muslims should be more respectful of your scriptures. Now, sadly, I've not seen these guys actually go through and try to reconcile them because that's what you'd have to do, right? Yeah. If we have the word of God and you have the word of God and then we have all these differences,

you have to come up with the way of reconciling them. There's not a development of doctrine or through prophecy, it's contradiction. Yeah, it should, it should match up. It should match up. So we'll come back to that because I think that would be the best response. To say again.

To say, yes, the Quran is affirming. the inspiration preservation authority versus scriptures. Yeah. Your Jewish and Christian scriptures, right? The ones that you have. So that's one. I'll come back to that because they haven't really gone into detail about reconciling these things.

I'll say what I think you would have to do to try and reconcile these things. Then at the other extreme, you have, yes, the Quran is affirming the inspiration preservation authority of the Torah and the Gospel, but it's not the Torah and the Gospel you have and you actually have no record of it. It's a miraculously disappearing book. It appears and disappears. now the problem so you've got that's one of the best responses you know no no these are just these are all i see i think that's a terrible response because on the one hand the benefit they all have it they all

have a benefit and a problem the benefit of that is you don't have to reinterpret all these verses of the koran which affirm our books you grant all of those you don't have to twist your scriptures at all but you're now you're appealing to sort of ghost texts um phantom texts that appear when necessary and disappear and you have no record of them. You don't have a fragment of a manuscript. You don't have a translation. You have nothing to suggest that these things ever existed.

You just need that to avoid the Islamic dilemma. So you're saying that all these things exist that we have no evidence of. So again, it's a massive, trust me, bro. The main position, the main position that Muslims have been using is the Quran isn't affirming the inspiration preservation authority

of your scriptures. It's affirming the inspiration, but and then they have to reinterpret all these verses. But you're talking dozens and dozens of verses that they have to reinterpret. The problem there is, again, Allah claims to be clear. Aha. So when he says, if you only believe in parts of your book

and not in all of it, he'll send you to hell, oh, what he's really saying there is, if you don't believe in the parts that agree with this, what are you talking about? When he says Jews don't need Muhammad because they have the Torah, what he really means is they'll say, oh, he's just being sarcastic there. What Allah really means when he tells Christians to judge by the gospel is go to the

Quran, find what the Quran says, then go back to the gospel, take out all the parts that don't agree with the Quran, and then judge by what's left. Well, that wouldn't be judging by the gospel. That would be judging by the Quran. I'm not judging by the gospel. That would be judging the gospel by the Quran, right? So they'll try, they have to reinterpret everything, but they have to reinterpret dozens and dozens of Quran verses. And so that's just what they've been locked into because that's the most

consistent with what they've been taught all their lives. So that's what they're stuck to now. And right now, all we do is they say something. We quote the Quran. And then they say, what it really means is, and we go, well, did Allah lack the ability to say it like that? How come Allah in his perfect speech can say it this way, which sounds like it's agreeing with me and you, off the top of your head can say what he really meant? Doesn't that mean you are a clearer communicator than Allah? So are you greater than Allah? Allah says he's the best communicator. You're saying you can say what he really means. Now, I would imagine at this point, many Muslims would say, well, you don't actually speak Arabic, and if you did speak Arabic, you've got plenty of Arabic speakers on our

side. In fact, usually when I'm, usually when I'm talking, not when I'm debating, but usually when we're talking doing live streams, I got Jai and D.C, they're fluent in Arabic, and I'm sitting right with me. Who do you have? Jai, Jai, apologetics, and D.C. They're both fluent Arabic speakers and stuff. They're the ones who completely burn them up on this. Well, I'm just trying to think how they would respond, because I would imagine they Do you get a lot of people who say that? Like, well, you don't use David Wood. They, they, they, you're kind of a joke if you just say, well, you don't know Arabic.

And it's like, because it's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of time before I, okay, yeah, he says, you know, no Arabic, break down the Arabic. They get crushed on the Arabic because they'll be the ones lying about the Arabic. Well, in Arabic, it says this. And then, okay, let's pull up all the lexicons and so on and all your commentaries. That's not what it says, you liar. And they get exposed as liars. And so what, what you really end up with is for people who take that.

middle position, which is, again, the main position. Oh, what Allah really means here is the opposite of what he says. What he really means here is, oh, he's just being sarcastic. It didn't really mean what he says. They're constantly saying Allah doesn't mean what he says. But, oh, in Arabic, it means something different. That's another version of that. And they can catch someone off guard and just make stuff up. But then you expose them and you expose them as misrepresenting the text. What you do at that point is, every single thing the Quran actually condemns Jews and Christians for doing distorting the scriptures with our speech, twisting the scriptures, misrepresenting the scriptures, that's what you guys are doing right now. And Allah says he'll send us to hell for doing that with our

book. So where does that leave you? I start calling them apostates. I say you're, you guys are apostates according to the Quran because of the way you're treating Allah. Wow. So that's kind of where we go. That's where we are now. We're still, it's like people are catching on, but you've got two billion Muslims. It takes some time to really, for this to filter down to Muslims everywhere. So that's kind of what we're in the, but there's nothing that works. Appealing the Arabic doesn't work. Just constantly saying Allah means the opposite of what he says doesn't work. So none of this is working. It's just how do we convey it to more and more people? So have you been excited then to see more and more Christian apologists using this? Oh yeah. No, it's awesome. Because if you go back like five

or six years, there were like three or four of us using this argument. We've been doing it for a while and now it's just catching on to where everyone's using it all over the place. What happened? What sparked the kind of revival of this argument? Was it a recent debate you've, had or somebody else had that brought this into the mainstream. And by the mainstream, I mean, the YouTube mainstream. It was just the beginning of the year. I just said, hey, this is going to be the year of the Islamic dilemma. We're all going to push the Islamic dilemma. I don't know if anyone's, everyone's going to go along with me, but everyone did. It was awesome. And when you say we, who do you, who are you referring to? Other Christian apologists said, hey, and I contact

some Christian apologists, inspiring philosophy and God logic and all these guys said, hey, let's all push the Islamic dilemma really hard this year. And so we started just doing live streams on it. Over on God Logic's channel, we just over and over again, we did open call in. Any Muslim wants call in and challenge us on the Islamic dilemma. And the same thing would happen over and over again. They just call in. They think they got a response. We go through it. We look at it. We show them. You have no idea. You just brought up this first. You think it agrees with you. Read what he says right before and read what he says right after it. What's going on here? Are you correct? Is that the correct interpretation? They're just getting crushed. So we've been doing that. We've had multiple

debates. Those debates have always gone extremely well in our favor. That's what's been going on all year and that's how it's kind of been becoming more and more popular and now almost everyone is using it but just going back to why i said the the first response i think is best namely yes the koran is affirming the inspiration preservation and authority of the bible that you have again i haven't seen muslims flesh that out but i think that would be the only defensible route it would go something like this. The Quran is affirming these other scriptures, and therefore, instead of them just, instead of us attacking those other scriptures, we have to try and harmonize them. Yeah. We have to try and harmonize them. And some issues that's actually, you can actually do that.

Like almost all Muslims believe that the Quran is saying Jesus didn't die by crucifixion. It's one verse. It's one verse. Sur 4 verse 157. That sounds like it's saying Jesus didn't die by crucifixion. In context, it's a criticism of Jews who are bragging that they had exposed Jesus as a false prophet by killing and crucifying him. And Allah's response is, they killed him, not nor crucified him. They'll say, see, Jesus didn't die by crucifixion. Well, there's always been a minority Muslim position that says, that's not, the Quran isn't denying Jesus' crucifixion. It's not denying that. What is saying is, you didn't get the victory over him by doing that. You didn't expose him because this was all part of Allah's plan. And you even have other passages that

Surah 3, verse 55, in the Arabic, sounds like it's saying Jesus died, right? It says Allah, Allah took his soul away. If you look at English, most English translations will just say Allah took him to himself. And it's actually he took his soul away, which sounds like he died, right? That sounds like he died. Yeah. Which is interesting because these passages also say Allah raised him to himself. So if Allah, if he died, Allah took a soul away, then Allah raised him.

It sounds like he sounds like death and resurrection, which would fit very well. So anyway, the point is, you've always had Muslims, you've always had Muslims who understood 4157 differently. Like there are Muslims who will say, they'll also quote the Quran where it says, it's talking about a battle, it's talking about the Battle of Badr. And it says, and Muslims were saying, and we killed this, we killed this guy. It's like, no, you didn't kill him. Allah did.

Don't say you killed him. So you have passages like that where don't say you did it because it's actually Allah doing it through you. Therefore, you don't say you did it. Well, if Jews are saying, we killed him and Allah is saying, well, this is, no, I, that was part of my plan, then you can kind of see it. But anyway, so then a lot of Muslims might be in the awkward position of having to adopt something that a minority of Muslims have always held, but that goes against the mainstream.

Yeah, because if you're saying, hey, there's a minority Muslim position, I'll grant 4157, if you ignored everything else. It does sound like it's saying Jesus didn't die by, didn't die by crucifixion. That's what it sounds like. There are other things in the Quran, even according to Muslims, which makes you go, well, maybe that's not what it means. Maybe that's not what it means. But if you're saying, hey, the previous scriptures are actually,

reliable scriptures, then what you would say is, okay, the gospel is completely 100% clear on Jesus dying by crucifixion. Therefore, we have to interpret that one verse and say, that's not denying it. So I think you could do something like that. It gets a little different, it gets a little more difficult when you're talking about like Son of God stuff, right? Because there, the Quran is crystal clear and the gospel is crystal clear. So how do you reconcile things like that? And the only way I can see around that is, I mentioned sort of 5 verse 48 earlier. So again, 543, Jews, why are you coming to Muhammad? You've got the Torah. You're supposed to judge by the Torah. 547, Christians, you judge by the gospel. 548, Allah sent the Quran confirming the previous scriptures and as a guardian

over them. How is it a guardian in context? Well, when Jews and Christians try to avoid their scriptures or distort them, the Quran says, don't do that. Stop doing that. Go with your scriptures. Judge by your scriptures. That's how the Quran is guarding them. But in the rest of that verse, it says that Allah revealed a law, a different law to different groups in order to keep them separate groups so that they wouldn't be one group because Allah wants different groups with different laws to keep them different groups so that different groups will compete with each other in good works. So that we'll be saying, hey, our group is doing better works than you. And you'll say, well, we'll do better too. And we're all competing to see who can do the best works. But there it says Allah revealed different things to different groups,

specifically to keep them from becoming one big group. And if you take that and combine it with Allah revealed all these scriptures, and yes, we have some differences in these scriptures, I think you'd have to get, and again, this is not, I don't think this is a great position. I think it's the best of the alternatives would be, yeah, Allah revealed this to Christians and said that Jesus is the son of God and so on, because he wanted the Christians to be a completely separate group from the Muslims and to never

become one group so that you'd all have these separate groups. And so you just have to say, yeah, Allah is revealing different things to different groups, specifically to keep them all being different groups so they can compete with each other in good works. I don't think that's a great response. Well, then the idea of... I think it's a massively better response than the alternatives. Yeah. Well, then that would be an argument against the Mohammedans trying to take over Christian nations and Jewish nations

with the Jewish nation, right? Wouldn't it? Yeah. If you're supposed to stay separate, you'd have some, yeah, you'd have some other things because it does say that, again, when Muhammad found out that the Jews and Christians

weren't confirming his scriptures and so on, and we're denying him, then it's, oh, they're actually evil. They're actually evil. They know I'm in their books, and they're denying it, and that's why I have to subjugate them all. And so what you'd have to say is,

hey, once Muslims are acknowledging, our scriptures and that we have differences than Christians you can acknowledge, hey, we're fine, we're fine with your scriptures as long as you're acknowledging our scriptures, and then you don't have to subjugate us and we'll all just compete to see who can do the best works

or something like that. Again, I don't think this fits together very well because I don't believe in Muhammad and I don't believe this is actually from God. Wow. If I've said this repeatedly when people are asking me about what I think is the best position, it's if I say and I would say something like, okay, if for some reason, God forbid, Muslims were to give me some great argument for why Muhammad is a prophet and the Quran is the word of God. If I somehow became convinced of that and I thought,

huh, the Quran is the word of God. Muhammad was a true prophet. I couldn't suddenly ignore what I know the Quran says about the previous scriptures. I couldn't do that. So what would I do? What would I have to do as a Muslim? Well, I'd have to do what I just said. I'm not just going to reinterpret everything Allah says that I don't like. I can't do it. I can't say, well, well, you've got dozens and dozens of verses affirming the scriptures, but I'm going to say they're all corrupted and Allah means something different. I would have more respect for Allah than that, right? So I can't do that. And I'm not going to say, well, there's this phantom book that Allah affirmed that, that appeared and disappeared and stuff like that. I can't say that. That's just

beyond ridiculous. I mean, I actually had to say it to John Fontaine. So wait a minute. So the Torah, I mean, if the Ingeal made it to 7th century Arabia, then the angel existed in the first century, the second century, the third century, the fourth century. The fourth century. the 5th century, the 6th century, the 7th century, all the way down into some weird little city in Arabia without a single mention of it anywhere? Don't you think a book from Jesus would kind of been important to Christians that we would have been talking about it and translating it? What did he say? No, it's just he can't acknowledge it. It doesn't matter. This is this position. He was fine. He was fine with there being no mention of this anywhere. And then the Torah,

of course, the Torah is even worse because now you've got it for like 2,000 years. And it's appearing and disappearing and being re-revealed whenever his source says that it was existed during this time okay it was re-revealed during that time then it was lost again so it's it exists and it exists and it doesn't exist and it doesn't exist and then in seventh century medina it exists again so anyway the point is i can never acknowledge that and so if for some reason i concluded that the Quran is the word of god i'd have to say okay the Quran is the word of god but it's also affirming these scriptures as the word of god and therefore the only thing i can do is is harmonize. And when I can't harmonize, I have to say Allah has a reason for making these

not harmonize. And it must be the only explanation I can think of is 548 for why these wouldn't be able to be harmonized. And so I'd have to believe something along those lines, which it's hard, but it fits better than everything else, even though it's a problem. Wow, that's fascinating. Okay, going from the dilemma to the trilemma, using Lewis's trilemma, but on Muhammad, I guess we could say that Muhammad was either a prophet, liar, or lunatic. Perhaps we could say he was possessed, so that might be a quadru lemma. I don't know. But what would you say he is, given your research on him? I think you could make a case for several of those, except profit, except true profit.

I think you can make a good case for liar. Not with everything, because I mean, I, I the same standard to everyone when, you know, when Muslims say Paul was the liars, like Paul was willing to endure torture and eventually death for what he's proclaiming. Same with, you know, a bunch of the apostles and so on. So I have to take them seriously that they weren't lying. Liars generally make poor martyrs. So when Muhammad's out, you know, when he's being persecuted or risking death and battle and stuff like that, it's like he seems to believe that he's a prophet. And so I can't just say he's lying the entire. time. There are certain instances because you have a bunch of them where Muhammad receives revelations

that seem to have no purpose other than giving him something that he wants. Like? So I mentioned Muhammad and Aisha. So Muhammad married this girl when she's six and is based on a revelation, right? So he said he had a he had a dream about a law giving the six year old girl to him as a gift, right? So maybe he did, right? If I had a dream about a six year old girl, I want to go see a psychiatrist. I wouldn't think, oh, I guess she's mine, right? Yeah. So there's that. So maybe you think, okay, maybe you did have a dream about her and he took it as a revelation. Um, when Muhammad took the wife of his own adopted son. So Muhammad originally had an adopted son named Zayed. And Zayed married one of the most beautiful women, uh, there were, uh, Zainab. And then Muhammad goes to

visit his adopted son one day and sees Zainab almost naked. She was wearing basically like a nighty. and then he walks away praising Allah because he concluded that since he desired her, Allah was revealing that she's going to be his. So Zaid divorces her so that Muhammad could have her, right? So Muhammad has an adopted son. Adopted son has a beautiful wife. Muhammad sees her almost naked, gets attracted to her, concludes that she's for him. His adopted son divorces her specifically so that Muhammad could have her.

But then Muhammad gives the reason from Allah because everyone starts saying, you can't take the wife of your own adopted son. They regarded that as the same as incest, basically, back then. So they regard that as like incest. Then Allah has to explain why he told Muhammad to do that. Muhammad, it's not me. Allah ordered me to take that one. I didn't even want her.

Yeah, yeah. I had to have her because of Allah. And Allah explains it. Anyone who wants to read it? Surah 33, verse 37 of the Quran. I kid you not, Allah says, The reason I needed you, Muhammad, to marry the wife of your own adopted son is because other people are wondering if they can marry the wives of their adopted sons

and I need them to know it's okay. Ah, okay. Now, how many people do you know of ever in history who really struggled? Can I take the wife of my own adopted son or not? I don't know. I need an explanation from God. Yeah. So that's just silly for multiple reasons.

Now, suppose it was really, Allah looks around and sees, wow, there's all these guys wondering if they can take the wives of their own adopted sons out there. What am I going to do? I know. I'll have Muhammad marry the wife of his own adopted son and then they'll know. Well, couldn't you have just revealed that? Like in the Quran, just said, okay, in case anyone's wondering, whether you can take the wife or your own adopted son, yes, you can. Why do you need Muhammad to do it? You don't need Muhammad to do everything that you're saying is okay.

You can just say it in the Quran. So you didn't need that. That's the point. One, it's an absurd. I've never heard of anyone wrestling with that. Two, even if there were, Muhammad wouldn't need to do it. Allah could just reveal it. But three, there's a worst problem.

Also in Surah 33, since people are accusing Muhammad of incest over this, versus four to five of Surah 33, Allah abolishes adoption. Oh. So think about this. Adoption is abolished in Islam. You can take care of an orphan in Islam. You cannot adopt an orphan into your family. The orphan does not become part of your family.

So wait a minute. He said, so think about he's getting it, right? Yeah, it's like time in, I can marry her, time out, we're not doing that anymore. So that's the point. Allah's saying, Muhammad, you have to do this so that everyone understands it's okay. Oh, by the way, it's never a situation that's going to rise again because you're going to be no more adopted sons. It's like, okay, this is just completely idiotic at this point, right? Those are the sorts of things where it looks like Muhammad's just trying to justify every perverted desire that pops into us head.

And there's plenty more. Like the Quran says, Muslims can marry up to four women. Muhammad had at least nine wives at one time. Why? Allah gave him a special revelation. Surah 33 verse 50. Okay, you get more. That sounds awfully convenient, right?

That the one receiving the revelations is getting all these special privileges. I'll give you another one. Surah 66, verses one to two. It just says that Muhammad is allowed to break his oath. Go ahead and break your oath. The historical background is, Muhammad, it was understood that Muhammad can have sex with his slave girls. That was understood.

but Muhammad's wives didn't want it happening in their beds, right? You go somewhere else. You go somewhere else and have sex with your slave girl. Anyway, Muhammad's wife, Hafsa, goes out to run some errands. He takes his slave girl, marry the copped, Christian girl. Muhammad takes his slave girl, marry the copt, into Haftsa's bed, starts having sex with, marry the copt, in Hafts's bed. Hafsa comes home early, catches Muhammad in bed in her bed, in Hafts's bed with his slave girl. She flips out.

What are you doing? Muhammad's just going, don't tell the other wives. Don't tell Aisha. They're all going to, they're all going to complain to me. She goes, tells everyone, right? She goes, tells all the wives around. You're doing this in our beds? You're having sex with you.

I mean, just rolling around with your slave girl, getting your fluids all over her fluids. Your fluids all over our beds is disgusting, right? So, Muhammad, in order to calm all his wives down, says, I swear by Allah, I will never have sex with that slave girl again. And that calms his wives down. Okay. He's saying he's never going to do it again. Okay. Then he goes back to having sex with her.

It's Allah gave me a revelation saying I could break that oath. Where is this found? This is Surah 66 versus 1 to 2. I cannot believe that this is in the Quran. Yes. You don't understand it from Surah 66 versus 1 to 2. It just says Muhammad can break his oath because Allah didn't command him to make that oath. Allah says, I didn't command you to make that oath.

They put that on me. Yeah. I didn't command you to make that oath. You can go to Tofsyer Jalalal Lane and you can go to Sunnan on Nassai, which give the historical background. Wow. So you have right there. but think about this. Think about the reasoning. Muhammad, I didn't order you to make that oath

so you can go ahead and break it. How many oaths that have ever been taken were actually commanded by God? Few. So all oaths can be, you can swear by Allah all day and all night. Allah didn't command me to say it, so I can go ahead and break that oath. It's like there are these weird issues.

So anyway, that's what I'm talking about when I say. Some of this sounds way, way, way massively too convenient. Mahm's getting all these revelations. So you can imagine this guy being, a liar. Like just making stuff up. I've got a religion now. I can say whatever I want. So that's the point. Some of it sounds like a guy who's just making up revelations to get whatever he wants and to do people. But there's other, you know, other indications where he sounds like he really believes that he's a prophet. And you have reasons to think that he's really a prophet.

So you can interpret that as he really thinks he's a prophet, but he feels comfortable making things up as well because he's so special and therefore he can, you know, he knows he can get away with it. Or just his desires so massively influenced him that he would think he's receiving revelations saying that he could do these things. Point is, I don't know. So you have some indication, you have a bunch of indications that suggest he really believed he's a prophet. You have all these things where it's like, like it sounds like an obvious false prophet

making things up to just give himself whatever he wants. The demonic stuff, like was he just possessed or something? Again, his first impression was that he was demon possessed. He was possessed by something and he became suicidal, tried to hurl himself off a cliff for this. So you could say, sometimes your first. impression is the correct one. He could think he's actually demon possessed.

And you have some other indications. You have what are called the satanic verses. That's when Muhammad, this was early on, but Muhammad was upset that his tribe didn't convert to Islam, and he was longing for a revelation that would convince his tribe to convert. Eventually, he got the revelation he was looking for. It said that Muslims can pray to three pagan goddesses. A lot, al-Alu's and Manat. They were the gods of his tribe.

goddesses of his tribe. You can pray to Allah, Alusa, and Manat. And the idea was they're not the main God, but they were called the exalted cranes. Like in the bird sense, there were the exalted cranes. The idea was, they'll carry your prayers up to Allah. So you can pray to them as intercessors. And they'll carry your prayers up to Allah. So Muhammad receives these revelations. He gives, he delivers the revelations to his followers. He bows down in honor of the revelation saying, we can all now pray to pagan goddesses. His followers, bow down and then his entire tribe bows down to it. Wow, he's praised our goddesses. And so you have this, uh, everyone's, everyone's good and everyone's on the same page.

Right. Except now he's a polytheist, right? Yeah. So Muhammad comes back a little later and says, oops, Gabriel informed me that that revelation didn't come from a law. That revelation came from Satan. Satan tricked me into receiving that revelation. Which opens, oh, so many different cans of worms. One, wait, Muhammad couldn't tell the difference between a revelation from God and a revelation from Satan. I don't trust anything you say now. If you can't tell the difference between God and Satan when you're receiving your revelation and Satan can actually deliver revelations to you, you've got problems. I'm not trusting anything you said.

Maybe it was God who did give you the revelation. And then Satan appeared in a form that you thought was God and told you he tricked you. But, yeah, crikey. And by the way, a little side note. I mean, that leads to all kinds of other problems like since the Quran affirms the Torah. And their Muslims' favorite passage from the Torah is Deuteronomy 1818, which they view as a prophecy about Muhammad. God says that he's going to send a prophet like Moses. And they say, ah, Muhammad's a prophet like Moses.

This must be him. Just two verses after that. Deuteronomy 1820 says that if it gives two criteria for spotting a false prophet, if someone delivers a revelation that doesn't come from God or speaks in the names of other gods, that prophet shall die. It would have been a death sentence. So if Muhammad had delivered the satanic verses during this time of Moses, Moses would have had him executed for promoting polytheism and for delivering something

that didn't actually come from God. So you have all those kinds of issues. But then Muhammad's response was, oops, the devil made me do it. And then he rejected that. But anyway, that was part of the Quran. That was revealed as part of the Quran. Then they had to take that part out because it was from, it was from Satan. So you have that.

You have, there was a time for between six months and two years, Muslim sources aren't clear on how long it took. But between six months and two years, Muhammad was having delusional thoughts and false beliefs and was coming back and saying he did stuff. And people were like, no, what are you talking about? You didn't do any of that. And then later on, he came back and said that someone had cast a magic spell on him that was giving him these delusional thoughts and false beliefs. And I'm sitting there thinking, you're a prophet and someone could take you out by getting a hair from your hairbrush and casting a spell. It's pretty, pretty wild. And then you just look at how he received his revelation.

I was talking about his face turning red. He would start sweating profusely, even if it was cold and stuff like this. He would fall over on the ground and stuff. It sounds like something out of an Exorcist movie. So you've got all sorts of things you can point to as far as demonic influence. You have all sorts of things you can point to as far as him just coming up with stuff out of his own mind. And you've got that you've got the idea that he believed he was a prophet. No good evidence for that.

But he's just deluded or insane. By the way, he's accused of that over and over again. Allah has to repeatedly respond. You're not a madman. You're not a madman. You're not what prophet has to be told over and over again? You're not crazy. You're not crazy.

Because everyone around him was saying he's crazy. Anyway, so as far as the quadrilema, you definitely have a case that Muhammad is just using religion to get what he wants. For some of the stuff, you have, Muhammad was just insane. And again, you even have that from the Quran, but people are accusing him. You're just, you're nuts, man. Dude, you are nuts. And then, of course, that some of this had a demonic origin with, you know, Muhammad thinking that and magic spell and all this stuff.

The thing you don't really have is evidence that he's a true prophet. The evidence that he's a true prophet is that he's firming our scriptures, which contradict his. What's going on there? For those in the back, speaking of evidence, is there evidence to think that Muhammad was a pedophile? Well, if you consider having sex with a prepubescent nine-year-old girl, pedophilia, which would be straight out of the DSM-5, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health problems. because, yeah, pre-peubate, having sex with, being sexually attracted to a prepubescent girl would be.

And then engaging in that. Yeah. And so, you do have distinctions there because I read it. We actually went through it for a discussion. But, yes, if you are sexually attracted to a prepubescent girl or boy, they would consider you would have pedophilic disorder, but they have various distinctions because they're qualifiers like, is it, are you just attracted to prepubescent girls or boys? And Muhammad wasn't. He would have sex with, you know, other women and stuff. So they would call it non-exclusive

pedophilic disorder. And there are other qualifiers, like some people are like attracted to just relatives. And so there's an incestuous variant of it and stuff like that. But yeah, you would say that Muhammad had a, Muhammad suffered from non-exclusive pedophilic disorder, according to today's what we would say today. And yet it's been supportive. surprising to see Mohammedan apologists trying to defend pedophilia. Yeah, and that's recent too. You can't make this stuff up. I would have thought that was a Christian trying to slander them, but no, they're doing that.

By the way, that's what I thought. I first heard about it. I was in prison when I first heard about that. And I heard because a Christian had read it in Voice of the Martyrs when it was talking about the problem with abuse of minors and minor marriage in various places and they said that the reason they can't get around this in Islam or make a law against it is because Muhammad had sex with the nine-year-old girl. And I was just thinking, you're crazy, man. There's no way Muhammad had sex with a nine-year-old girl. I don't believe your magazine

anymore. And it wasn't until I was having discussions with Nabil and I started looking the stuff up. It's all over the place. There's like over 200 passages in their sources talking about Muhammad having sex with a nine-year-old girl. And so I only started bringing that up, not to be mean, but it was because back then, and fortunately, people don't even have to, people don't realize what arguments have been so destroyed that they don't even hear them anymore. Back then, you're talking 2003, 2004, one of the most common arguments for Islam was, Muhammad's character is so perfect in every single way that there's no other explanation other than he was, he's a divine prophet. There's no other explanation. And so you start finding this stuff out and it's like, okay,

what about him having sex with a nine-year-old girl? how's that not a problem back then you were just called a liar liar that's not okay well here's a source oh yeah but there are all these other sources and so it was years of them lying so first they just said it's not true Christians are making this up uh then once you actually started showing them sources then it was okay yes there are some sources but the sources are all over the place it says other it says other in other passages it says she was much older got to the point where uh several years ago was in a debate with a Muslim and he was saying oh yeah so david's quote and i quoted like two dozen passages in my opening statement about Muhammad having sex of the nine-year-old girl.

This guy was saying, no, it never happened. She was much older. And he was going, yeah, but yeah, so you have those passages, but you have all these other passages. I just start going, give me one. Give me one passage that says she was older. Give me one passage that says she was 18. One. And he's going, yeah, but there are so many. Yeah, one. And he's going, oh, look at him saying. And I start going to the audience. Guys, if he's saying there's a different age in the Muslim sources, is it too much for me to ask for one? Is it too much to ask for one source that says anything he's saying? And he can never give one. Because there isn't. one.

Wow. So again, it's a, when you hear people, when you hear Muslims now defending sex with minors, this is the standard position now, defending sex with little girls and saying it's fine. God have mercy. The reason is we force them into not lying. And then once everyone understands Mohammed had sex with a nine-year-old girl, you can't say it's wrong. They double down on it.

Yeah, so you have to defend it. It's going to be interesting to see what the Islamic dilemma, as you laid it out, is going to force Muslims to do over the next 10, 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we want to see. I'm interested myself. All right, so the Islamic dilemma may show, seems to show Islam to be false.

Doesn't prove Christianity to be true though, right? That's correct. An atheist could run that argument. Right. An atheist could run that argument from just the Christian scriptures, like I said. In other words, an atheist could say, hey, I don't believe in the Christian scriptures, but your scriptures contradict the Christian scriptures while affirming their inspiration, preservation, preservation of authority, and therefore your religion self-destructs. You can say that without

ever believing in the Christian scriptures at all. So why are you a Christian? Well, not because of the Islamic dilemma. Yeah, no, I mean, I grew up as an atheist. I wasn't thinking of that when I was young. It was just, it was never an issue when I grew up. So it was, the only time I ever encountered anything Christian was if I would visit my grandmother or something like that. That would be it. It never came up with my mom. It never came up with my dad. Until I was older and I actually realized it was an atheist and they would occasionally

talk about something. So anyways, it's not an issue for my early life. You didn't go to church or anything? If I visited my grandmother or my aunt, but not my mom or dad or any. And again, never, never, it was never a topic. And when I visited, if I was like at my aunts and she took me to church, then I would basically go in there and I would sit beside this little clock and I would stare at the clock the entire time waiting for it over because they would have like donuts and brownies afterwards. And that was cool. But nothing, nothing I ever took seriously.

And I don't remember how old I was. I know I was a complete mocker by the time I was like 14. So it was probably a couple years before that before I realized I was an. atheist and, yeah, it became a total mocker by the time I was like in high school. I was like that as well. Had you heard the term atheist at that point, or did you just decide you didn't believe in God and then later find out that that's what that meant, atheist? Yeah, at some point, again, most of my, most of my early life was not even thinking about

it. I'm guessing I was around 12 or something like that when I was like, I don't believe in any of this stuff. And then 14, by the time, I was just like openly mocking, openly mocking people and so on. and uh yep so that was that was that up until i ended up in uh ended up in jail yeah now this might surprise you i know some of the facts there but i don't actually i'd love to hear the story if you're willing to tell it and so how you got to prison and then when it when you were in prison how you came to christ i uh yeah so it was never kind of an issue i i didn't realize

it when i was young but i had i was eventually when i was 18 diagnosed with any social person personality disorder. Okay. So, it's more, because when I, when I tell my, in my background story, atheists will go, why are you saying that atheists are like this? I'm not saying atheists are like this. This is how I was. I wasn't just an atheist.

I was an atheist with antisocial personality disorder. The bad combination, bad combination, because you're going to end up, you're going to end up hurting a lot of people along the way. I'd love, can I ask more about that, or is that a sensitive topic? So how did you decide? will discover that you had this quote unquote and then when did you realize you were different from other people who didn't have it all right i realized when i was probably five when i was five and six like the the five the five to seven year range that's when i was realizing i was different from

everyone else i didn't know what any social personality disorder was this people need to be educated on this because i'll tell you from experience if you have any social personality disorder which you wouldn't even have been diagnosed with it back then they won't diagnose you till you're an adult. They'll diagnose you with like conduct disorder or something like that, but they don't like putting the label on young people. But you do have the, you do have the symptoms when you're young. But I started noticing, and the example, because this was, this is the example I give because this is when it first like hit me. It was, I'd had a dog as long as I can remember. So from before I could form memories and stuff, I had this little

dog named Goliath. And, you know, it was always hanging out with, always hanging out with Goliath, running around doing things with Goliath and so on. And then I was over at a friend's house one day. And my mom gets a phone call to tell me that Goliath had been run over by a bus. And she turned to me with tears in her eyes. And she said, Goliath's been hit by a bus. And like the first thought in my head was so what, it's a dog. And but I'm looking at my mom going, why is she crying?

She hated my dog. She hated that dog. Like, why is she crying over this? And I thought there was something wrong with my mom. Like, did you think that dog was going to live forever? Like, what, what's, what? And why? Why would you care? Like, what's going on here? So I was, like, confused. And I thought there was something weird with my mom. It wasn't until, like, you know, as time went on, I saw other people

reacting this way. And I was like, wait, everyone's, like, upset about, like, animals. What? You guys not know. Do you not know about death? What's, like, what's wrong with you? And I remember I was over, we actually lived here. And we had like a, this was like two years later. And we lived in a, like a community house. There's a bunch of people living there. And we all, we all had our dog and once the dog got hit by a car and then was in a cast for a while and then a while later the dog got killed by a car and but these were all the tough kids this is like a tough kid these were like the tough kids everyone in the house had drugs everyone everyone in the house did drugs and stuff like this the kids in this house were like a gang they were

super tough they were older than me and they're all crying over this they're crying over this dog too and i walked in and they all got their heads down in their hands and stuff like this and they told me and at that point I was like, okay, now I need to fit in. But I was trying to figure out how to fit in. So I was either six or seven at this time. But for some reason, I thought it was like the angle of your head that signified. So I copied the angle of their head. And I sort of lean forward like this.

And I got my head at the same angle. But I'm looking around making sure I'm doing it right. And all of a sudden, one of them, a kid named Todd, he goes, Dave don't even care. And he's like, well, yeah, he's right. But I was a stupid dog, right? So anyway, I learned it's more than just this head tilt. There's something more than that. So anyway, over time, you, you know, you start just mimicking other people's reactions to things.

But you don't know what any social personality disorder is. You just notice over time, everyone reacts in a certain way, and I'm the one who doesn't. I don't have, I'm not reacting to any of these things. And is it just sad things or is it also, you know, empathizing with other people's joy as well? Or is it? It's. Could you not understand where people were getting happy and excited over things? There's nothing that would, you wouldn't, you wouldn't feel bad for anything that happened.

Like, your entire family could die in front of you. There's no bad feeling. And, yeah, so there's none of that. You are constantly breaking rules. And like the worst, the worst thing you could do is punish me for something because things would have some kind, some level of deterrent effect on me for a while until you did it to me. And they're like, that's all you can do to me. That's all you're going to do. Like, David, you don't want to be suspended from school.

No, I don't want to be suspended from school. And then they suspend, wait, wait, you're going to make me sit at home and read, I mean, watch cartoons. That's what you're going to do if I get in trouble. So, yeah, it's that. There's no, there's no, there's just no feeling bad for, for people or what's going on. And what about guilt? Do you experience guilt for actions in like repenting to God of things you've done wrong? What's that experience like?

I've repented. I've never once felt guilt in my entire life. Guilt remorse, I have no, to this day, I have no, I have no clue what, whatever feeling you guys are talking about, I have, I've never felt it in my life at all. So I can, I can recognize that I'm wrong and say, okay, I'm not going to do that anymore. Yes. There's never a bad, there's no feeling. There's no, there's never a feeling about it. Right. So, like, not to get personal, but like, say in your marriage, you've done something that you realize now, that was clearly selfish of me or I see how I've hurt my wife, say, if she brings that up, you can acknowledge the injustice that you've committed, but you don't feel, and you don't have a feeling that are so. with that, it makes you feel depressed or bad about yourself?

Yeah, it's kind of, it's all, it's duty-based. Here's what I'm supposed to do. And here's what I am supposed to do in this situation. And therefore, I have to do what I'm supposed to do in this situation. If that's apologizing or whatever, then that's, that's what I have to do. So I do what I'm supposed to do. But no, there's no, there's no feeling associated with. Also, like, in, over the past couple decades, I've developed sort of what I would call, like,

second order responses that I could call remorse or guilt, but it's not what anyone else would. It's not a feeling. So in other words, with me, it's if something, if I do something bad that I should feel guilt for and I don't feel it, I can sort of focus on the fact that I'm defective and messed up and not responding in a normal way. And that doesn't feel good. Hey, I'm defective. Any normal person would be feeling terrible after doing something. I feel nothing. What sort of pathetic, screwed up, messed up person am I that I do not react normally to these kinds of things?

And that's not good. And so I could just call that guilt. It would be the sense that I am massively defective and screwed up for not responding in the normal human way. But when you're young, you don't know that. You don't know any of that. You don't know what any social personality disorder is. You don't know you have a problem.

And so you think everyone else has a problem. Yeah. And over time, you think you're superior because you're learning to mimic other people's reactions. And in the course of mimicking other people's reactions, you learn to kind of play with other people's reactions. And you're constantly feeling like you're superior. You all, I mean, and for everyone who's watching, right, we tell you an outsider's perspective here, an outsider's perspective. Some horrible tragedy happens in a family and everyone cries. And suppose someone doesn't cry.

They don't have that reaction. And that person looks like he's weird. But from an outsider's perspective, think about how weird it is. Like something bad happens and like salty goop starts leaking out of your eyes. And then someone else who doesn't have salty goop leaking out of their eyes. There's something wrong with that person. Yeah. Well, what does salty gop leaking out of your eyes have to do with anything?

Like imagine a foreign, a completely foreign culture. Like you go to some island somewhere or something like this. And then something happens and a baby's born and like wax. starts leaking out of ears and they look at you. No, he doesn't have wax leaking out of his ears. Oh, what an awful person? Wouldn't you be like, what the hell? What's wrong with you? Like, what's wrong with all you people? What's that got to do with anything? That's kind of what it's like. It's like you're making no sense here. I don't care if it's all of you. It makes zero sense. Have you ever cried? In when I was young, when I was enraged. Like I could be so enraised.

It was usually like not getting my way and having no way to get my way. Right. And I would be enraged and cry like that. Eventually, eventually, after I became a Christian, started like someone would get saved or something like this, and I would like, I would like tear up. It wasn't until my third son was born, my third son was born, and he had a rare genetic muscle. We had no idea what it was, but he's born with what,

like floppy, it's called a floppy baby syndrome. He's just basically floppy. He's got a heart rate, nothing else, no movement or anything. And my wife and I were praying, and all the sun while we're praying, I like got choked up. It was almost like, what the heck is that?

That was like the first time in my life. I got choked up over something that like was sad and not me being enraged or not for joy. But it was like, it was almost like, what just happened there? What was that? And I mean, I can count to you on like three or four fingers at the time that has happened. One was after, like, Nabil died.

When Nabil died, no reaction, no reaction at all. And it wasn't until it was at the funeral. And I was talking to his parents, like his parents were at the funeral, and I went up to them and I said, I said, I'm sorry for the way I treated you because they were upset, understandably so. Their son left Islam. And I always been like, well, so what? He's got some common sense. You should leave Islam too. That was like my attitude and not like how heartbreaking this was for them.

And so I actually apologized to them. They're sobbing. And all of a sudden, like, I got choked up and started kind of crying too. as I'm talking to them and apologizing, then I took like four or five steps and it was just, boom, it was gone. So it was there for a few seconds and then just like stopped.

So anyway, it's like a couple of times it's happened since I become a Christian. This is interesting, right? Because when I think of empathy, I think this is the way Edith Stein put it. It's this idea of feeling what the other's feeling. We're experiencing their joy

or experiencing their sorrow. And so it sounds like you were experiencing their sorrow just for a fleeting moment. But it's, but do you experience people's joy then? Do you feel elated at another's elation when they're in front of you? Um, I, I can have, I have, I can have good feelings and laughing and stuff like this. It's, yeah, it's mainly, it's just the sorrow thing. Yeah, it's mainly, yeah, it's mainly the, the sad things, the empathy type things, um, that sort of thing. And then the other thing is like

dangerous behavior. Like you, you're not, you're not doing anything unless you're, doing something bad. In matter of fact, this is actually weird. My entire life, I had a horribly low heart rate. Like way back in school, they'd say, okay, let's all test our heart rates and stuff. We all count stuff, and all the kids are counting theirs out, you know, 75, 76 and stuff. And they get to me, and I go, 42. And the teacher would go, no, you didn't count right.

And I'm like, I know how to count. You're the idiot. I know how to count my heart beats and stuff. But I would go get a physical and stuff like this, and they would go, are you dizzy right now? And I go, no, I'm fine. They go, your heart rate is dangerously low, and so is your blood pressure and stuff. They're like, we need to figure this out. So they're like testing my thyroid and stuff trying to figure out why my heart rate is so low.

And they can never figure it out. Anyways, this was just a few years ago, and I was reading it, it said people with antisocial personality disorder have abnormally low heart rates. And they conclude that it's like one of the theories of antisocial personality disorder is your entire nervous system is basically wired for extremely low, psychological arousal. It means it's just, it's bored out of its mind. And you have to, you have to do dangerous stuff to get to a normal human level. And so you don't feel like a normal human level unless you're doing some stuff where it's putting you in danger. And it's like, I was thinking, oh my goodness, that makes, that makes sense. I've always had to mess with people. Like, if I walk by a gang of bikers right now, I would have an urge to like

say something to mess with them. But I mean, I'm just looking at my life. So I end up in prison, all this stuff. And then what do I decide to do eventually? best with jihadis on a daily basis, right? So it's like, oh, okay, this is all, this is all making sense from a psychological perspective. So do you, so you're not very emotional? No. Yeah.

No. So then, I mean, I know it's a bad thing, but I presume that there's benefits to it. Like I would think if someone's going to take charge in a scary, dangerous situation, someone like yourself who doesn't act out of emotion. Yep. and who enjoys intense situations.

Yeah, you can look at, there's the bright side. So one, you don't want to have it, but if you do, then it can be helpful in certain situations. In fact, when I mentioned one of my sons having a rare disease, so we had five sons, two of them had that genetic disease. One of them died a couple of years ago, and I was interested in how my oldest two sons were going to react. Like, how are they going to react like me? because are they going to react like me? Are they going to react like their mom or what's going on? And one of my sons walked, walked, walked in,

and we went to the hospital and so on. And he just sat there and cried for like two hours. And I was thinking, good. He's normal. That's going to help him in marriage. That's going to help him when he has kids because he's normal. He reacts normal and that's good. My other son, my other oldest son, he walked in, totally blank expression, didn't cry at all.

but he went and hugged his mom to my wife for like 10 or 15 minutes just stood there just no expression on his face just stood there and hugged and I was thinking okay he's not reacting normally he's more like me which I thought just knowing him but he still knows what he has to do he still knows what his duty is and your duty in that situation is the comfort comfort your mom and so he understood that so I'm like okay if civilization breaks down or something like this he'll be okay he'll be okay and as long as he knows what he has to do as a man, then I'm fine with that. Forgive me if I'm getting, if I get too personal,

just tell me to stop being weird and I'll stop. But what was it like for the death of your son? And then if you didn't feel a great sadness over that, did you feel, I don't know, shame? I guess you don't feel shame, but did you feel lonely in that, especially as you're looking at your wife and? No, it's, it's.

So what was it like when your son died? What did you feel? I didn't feel anything. Yeah. There's no, yeah, again, there's no, I wish there were. I wish there were, but yeah, there's no, I don't know, there's no. Is it just logical?

Like, yes, I assumed he would die and now we've got details to worry about, or do you miss him, I presume? Yeah, it's just, it's sort of a situation of, okay, I'm, I'm the rock in this situation. And I didn't decide that. It was like other people died along the way. And then, like, people would say, oh, he's so, it's so comforting to, it's so comforting to see how strong he's, being in this situation i'm thinking well okay i'll you think i'm the i'm just the strong one here and not the mental one then then that's good i'll be your i'll be your rock in these uh in these situations so you can keep talking about this if you wish but i also want you to get like how did this

and and and what you did lead you to prison yeah so yeah when you're again when you're growing up and you don't know that this is actual problem because you never heard of this i'd heard of psychopaths and sociopaths and stuff like that. There's, like, popular terms for people with any social personality disorder, but you don't know about any of this stuff. And so you just think everyone else is defective. So I actually concluded over time that I had like evolved to another level of humanity. Ross Kolnikov. Yeah. That was, that was a really bad book for me to read when I was a, when I was a teenager. Because Ida, this is not associated with any social personality disorder. It's something else. It's something else. But I had

delusional thoughts at various times. Like the first time I remember I was watching a line of ants. I was probably like seven or eight or something like that. I was watching a line of ants march along beside a lake. And it just, it became clear to me all of a sudden that ants actually control the world and that they had tricked human beings into thinking we were in charge. And there's no, there's no like, here's the evidence that that's based on. It just like suddenly becomes clear to you.

It's like really weird. So I can kind of understand like crazy people with delusional thoughts because I, I've had them. It's like, do you remember those? They're popular in the 90s. They were like those, I think they're called auto stereograms, but I forget what they're called on the popular level. But there were just pictures with like designs on them,

but if you stared them long enough and let your eyes go out of focus, like an image will come out. Magic eye. Yeah, yeah, magic eye, the magic eye things. It was like that. You're staring at it and I don't see anything. I don't see anything. And whoa, it pops out.

It's like that. It's like that over and over again. But like, so at that point, it was ants control the world. And then it would go away. It would go away 10 minutes later or something like that. Um, but then eventually it was, I thought cats and dogs controlled the world and that they were actually like in our houses to keep an eye on us and stuff like this and maintain their control. And so there were those kinds of things. And then like all of 10th grade, I thought I controlled the weather. And like it would rain. I'd be like, how did I just make that happen? And I had to, I was trying to figure out how I was, how I was controlling the weather without realizing I was controlling the weather. And then, um, did you share this with anybody? I would run my mouth, but they just thought I was running my mouth. Like, yeah, don't worry about the rain.

I'll take care of it. And blah, blah, blah, right? They just thought I was like, oh, David. Just running my mouth. Right. And then in, I was 18, and I thought that I was part of an experiment. And everyone's like conspiring. Everyone in the world is in on the experiment, except for me.

And those kinds of thoughts. So those kinds of delusional thoughts I had along the way. That's different from any social personality disorder. had a couple problems along the way. But over time, with the not having the same emotional reactions, I concluded that I'm in a different, I'm in a completely different category. I've evolved to a higher stage of humanity.

Everyone else is beneath me. And then I read crime and punishment. And it was a few times before then that I thought that I would read something or I would hear a song or something and I would think it was speaking directly towards me. It could be a song and I would hear it. And that's telling me specifically something. crime and punishment was like it was it was all the sudden it was big it was like and it makes no sense keep in mind i'm a complete atheist a naturalist it makes no sense for me to be getting messages

from the universe or something like that but that's just what i that's what i thought that it doesn't make sense i mean i knew i mean looking back it didn't make any sense but it makes perfect sense to you while while you're there so reading crime and punishment you got raskolnikov and he does all this stuff and he's got his superman theory and then he does it and then he turns out he's a little weakling and he actually can't, can't, can't hack it. So that was the point you drew from that story. Yeah, it's, that's not him. He had the correct theory, but it's not about him, it's about me.

And it's from the, think about this, I'm some, like, some dude from a trailer park in West Virginia thinking I'm like, like, the most advanced human being in the world and that the universe is sending me a message telling me I'm beyond everyone else's like morality and rules and I don't have to follow any of this stuff. I'd already concluded that. It's like confirmation, like, oh, and the universe. is telling me I'm right, which makes no sense, given my, given my worldview. So that just, that's just convinced me everything I'm doing. Everything I'm doing is, is right.

I'm not bound by anyone's rules. I never felt like it, like I should be bound by anyone else's rules. But now it's like I've got this separate confirmation of everything I've concluded up to before then. And so anyway, gotten a lot of trouble along the way, but I eventually attacked my dad with a hammer. I hit him in the head, seven or times with a hammer. I thought he was dead. I left him for dead. Did you have a reason for doing that? Yeah, just like it was like a final, I felt like, uh, how'd I put this? Was he mean to you or? He had been mean to. There was, for that, there was no reason. It was not, oh, I'm really mad at you or something like that. It was, it was, I mean, I can describe it. It was

yeah. Like, uh, every time I was following a rule, even if it was just like required. Like, if David, here's what you have to do. I felt like I was somehow polluted, like something had been added to my pure awesomeness and you had added something to me. And so I had this inclination to just whatever you're trying to make me do, like do the opposite. And I would get this feeling of freedom whenever I do the opposite. So it's a rule. You can't do this. You can't break into a store. You can't do this. You can't steal that and stuff. And every time I did, it felt, it felt good. Like, oh, here's the real me. Here's the real me. I've gotten rid of that that pollution that you tried to stick into me with your inferior nature.

and so on. But you have to keep upping the game, right? And so eventually it's, I'll kill my own dead. And then that's going to be like the real me. Then I'm pure. I'm done with it. What else can I do after that? What else can I do after I've done that?

And that's going to be like the real, the real D-wood, completely unpolluted from the world that's constantly trying to pollute my pure awesomeness or whatever you want to call it. just and so did you plan the attack was it's a sort of spontaneous decision uh plan i was planning other i was planning other things and then that's that's what i decided would be like i was thinking like like i started studying bomb building and things like that um back then you could just walk into a bookstore and get books on like bomb building and stuff like you get the anarchist cookbook

get the simple stuff and then you're like pyrotechnics and teaching you how to like make fireworks and then oh if you modify it this way and stuff and i was buying books on disguises and stuff how to disguise yourself to do all this. But I was just thinking, like, what am I going to do? Kill a bunch of people I don't even know. Anyone can do that. Anyone drops a bomb on a place just does that. So, like.

Too easy. Yeah, got to be closer, right? So I was living with my dad at that point. And, okay, this is the real. This is how you really go about it. So planned that. And so I attacked him with a hammer, left him for dead. Was he asleep?

Was he? Yeah. Yeah, he was asleep. He woke up while I was doing it. but yeah so then left there went to my it was Thanksgiving morning did you try to kill him yeah I thought it was dead yeah I didn't I didn't know you would survive no I wouldn't neither I was about 235 pounds I didn't know you would survive a 235 pound dude uh hitting you seven or eight times in the head but the ball beat hammer yeah I thought you were dead I thought

you'd be dead for like one from like one hit yeah so seven or eight to seal the deal um okay so you did that and then yep then went to my uh that was in Virginia so then I that was probably like three in the morning, Thanksgiving Day, 1994, drove, and I was just going to go have Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of my family that day. Didn't feel anything. Didn't feel any remorse or any. No. Just excitement, maybe. No, it was, it was, I mean, I thought there was going to be some awesome feeling of, like, the ultimate freedom and stuff like that, but it was, it was just, there was just no good, there was no good or bad feeling. It was just like, blank. You were you afraid of being caught? I didn't want to get caught, but.

no, that's the thing. It's like, once you, like, what can you do to me? That's always, that's why I said it was, it was better to never punish me than to punish me. Because once you punish me, always, it was like, this is all you can do to me. So by that time, it's, no, I don't want to get caught, but what if you do? I was, I was, like, repulsed by the idea of doing what everyone else did. And that meant, like, the whole pattern of life. Okay, so you start off and you got kindergarten, and then you go through 12 years of school, and then you'd have you go get a job or do you go to college and then if you go to college and then you have your career and then you work for 30 or 40 years and then you retire and then you're old and you sit

around. It's like, why do I want to do any of that? Why? Because you guys have decided this is the pattern. You, the guys who come up with the rules that I'm supposed to follow, then you come up with like the entire pattern of life that I'm supposed to follow. Why? Why wouldn't I just do whatever I feel like doing? And if you can do something in response, so what? It doesn't really matter. And so, yeah, turns out my dad survived. Turns out my dad survived. And so first they put me in a mental hospital. That's where they concluded that I had, I had no idea what any social personality disorder was. When they eventually gave me my diagnosis, I just thought it meant I'm not very social. It's like, yeah, people are disgusting, right? Of course, it's not what they mean.

It's not what they mean at all. So, yeah, so I end up in jail because, Anti-social personality disorder, they, that's not something you stay in a mental hospital for. That's something they lock you up for, if you've done something. But it's not like being schizophrenic or something like that where they keep you in a mental hospital. Lots of, tons of people in jail and prison have antisocial personality disorder. So I end up in a dorm. And in the dorm, there's a guy named Randy. And he was a Christian that I started talking to.

And the first time I talked to him, he was up on his bunk reading his Bible. And I just walk up to him and I go, hey, you know why you're reading the Bible? You're reading the Bible because you're born in the United States. If you've been born anywhere else, you believe in something else. If you've been born in China, you'd be a Buddhist. If you've been born in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a Muslim. If you've been born in India, you'd be a Hindu. Because people like you believe whatever you're told to believe.

So I was proud of the fact that I didn't go along with what everyone else was. Which is weird because if you talked about like where the universe came from and where the life came from. I believed exactly what, you know, what I'd heard in my science class and stuff like that. So I believed what I was taught, what I was taught to believe. But I thought I was this awesome free thinker. Anyway, then I started talking to Randy. It turns out he was in jail because he'd become a Christian and he went in and turned himself in from, he'd been a criminal, he went and turned himself in on 21 felonies and stuff like this. So they locked him up and stuff. And anyway, then he's in there. And he's reading his Bible and I started arguing with him. But it was

weird because he started arguing back. I'd argue with Christians and lots of times Christians might argue, might push back slightly, but as soon as they see you're like really aggressive, they go, oh, we don't want to fight about this. We don't want to argue about this and stuff like. This is not something you argue about. He was quite comfortable just arguing over and over again. And so we just kept arguing for, for, I guess, months about Christianity. And it was weird because I didn't know that there were people who actually had any reasons for believing anything. He kept winning some of these arguments

and it was really weird to me. I can be mind, I think I'm the smartest, most advanced human being in the world. And not just a Christian, but a Christian dumb enough to turn himself in for a bunch of crimes. It's like dumbest of the dumb. He's beating me in arguments. And so all I could think of is he must be winning

because he's just talking about stuff that I've never studied, I've never learned. And so all I would have to do is learn some of this stuff, learn some of this stuff. And then I can actually crush this dude. And we eventually got into this fasting battle, which wasn't a battle for him. He's just fasting. He's talking about, hey, you know, I can do long-term fasting right now because I'm in jail.

And so I can do long-term fasting, and I might not have another opportunity to do long-term fasting for the rest of my life. So I'm going to do long-term fasting now. So I would fast, not for fast, I would just do it to beat him, right? So he fasted for seven days. And I know because he gave me all his trays. It was nice. He gave me all his trays and stuff. And so I said, all right, I'm doing 10.

right so I went 10 days first time I'd ever fast in my life I went 10 days nothing but water and then I ate for a weekend and I went another 10 days just to rub it in it's just pure rage just to beat the Christian because I can't out argue it so we keep going back and forth and he actually noticed over time he goes hey how come every time I fast you go like a couple days more and I don't know just just coincidence I guess when it wasn't it wasn't a coincidence it's all eventually he went 40 days he went like 32 days on nothing but water and then he started drinking like coolate to prepare his body for eating again because it actually messes you up. You go a long time and then all of a sudden you eat, you get messed up because your food goes right through your stomach

into your intestine and stuff and you're in horrible, horrible, awful pain. So he starts preparing his body for food again. And he finishes and he told me Jesus has gone 40 days. And so I said, all right, I'm going 42. I'm going to beat you and Jesus. So I start. And it was on the 11th day when I like totally passed out in front of a guard and hit my head. And then you had other people like reporting me they thought and they looked at my mental health right they thought i was trying to start myself to death because i'm trying to beat the christian trying to beat the christian you guys think i'm trying to starve myself to death like like i'm trying to commit suicide really really slowly right like the dumbest way imaginable anyway so they stick me in a they stick me in a cell

with the camera cell and they they think i'm trying to starve myself to death so they're threatening me and i started eating after that because i wanted to go back into the dorm and then they wouldn't let me out of the cell they kept me in the in the cell with the camera because they thought they're looking at mental health record and stuff saying something's wrong with this guy. And so they wouldn't let me out so then I stopped eating again and stuff. Anyway, I went from about 235 pounds down to the last time they weighed me, well, I was 152. I'm six foot three. It was 152 and I know several days after that that I wasn't eating and stuff. So I'm guessing I got it right around like 149, 150 or something like that, which would be a normal weight for someone. I've always been like the big 230, 235 pound guy.

so um but i'm back there and i'm i'm reading everything i can get my hands on i'm and it's all kinds of stuff i'm reading philosophy i was reading uh dialogues of plato's reading epicetus i was reading marcus aurelius and so on and also reading the bible but i'm just reading the bible so i know what i'm talking about when i go and argue with this guy and he had pointed out how the disciples died because i was accused i my theory that i gave him was they believed in jesus their guy died they wanted to keep the movement going so they made up a story about him rising from the dead Boom, I have solved the mystery of Christianity. And he was going, that doesn't make sense.

These guys went to their, like, bloody deaths, being tortured and killed. And he gave me Fox's Book of Martyrs, sitting there reading their death. Now, some of that stuff is wrong. It's based on later sources and stuff. But I actually, earlier, I think earlier this year, I did an interview with Sean McDow. Yeah, earlier this year, I didn't interview with Sean McDowell. Because some of that stuff is based on late sources. And some of it's really solid.

So I went through with Sean McDowell. And yeah, we concluded some of the stuff in Fox's books. the martyrs is based on late sources you can't really trust, but you have a pretty solid case that a bunch of these guys died for, died for their proclamation that Jesus had died on the cross and risen from the dead and appeared to them and so on. But anyway, I was just thinking about that. Why are these guys, my theory is that these guys made this up and died for it. That doesn't make any sense. Well, I would, I tried to think of one other person in history who died for something that he knew he made up.

Like lots of people die for things, but you kind of have to believe in it. You can't just be making it up, right? Like, so jihadis flying the planes in the building. Okay, say what you want about the guy. I believe he believes what he's saying. That guy believes in Islam. If he's dying for Islam, he believes it.

He's not just saying, oh, yeah, I'll just make up that I'm believing in Islam and then die for it. It doesn't make any sense. So I tried to think of one person in all of history who died for something that he knew he made up. I'm making up something and I'm willing to die for it.

I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't think of anyone. I couldn't think of one person. person. Like every person I can think of who was dying for something he believed in, you kind of have to believe in it. So it doesn't make sense that these guys made it up, that they're all conspiring to make up a story, and then they're willing to die for it. So I was just trying to I was trying to figure it out. Why would these guys die? Why would these guys die? Why would these guys die? Started not making sense. And basically it was it was like three things that came together.

I came up with a kind of design argument. I thought I was inventing it. I thought I was inventing this design argument, but it was, I was just looking around at the brick. I was just looking at the bricks. I'm sitting on my, sitting on my bunk, and I'm looking at the bricks on the wall. And I just thought, like, if someone told me these bricks went into this order by some natural process, I would think he's a freaking idiot. I think you're, you'd have to be an idiot to say that. You would be the dumbest person in the world. I would smack you in your mouth for saying something stupid like that. But I believe life formed on it. Like life is way more complicated and sophisticated than the simplest living cell is vastly more sophisticated than some bricks stacked up

on a wall. So it wasn't, oh, no, therefore life couldn't have arisen by chance. It was more along the lines of, why did I accept that with no proof? And I just accepted it with what my teacher said. In other words, I was always repulsed by the idea of other inferior beings telling me what to believe. And all of a sudden it's like, wait, these guys have been getting me all along. Like, they've been telling me what to believe about stuff all along, and I just bought into it because it was a, you know, was a teacher in some position of authority. I thought I was, I thought I was the one who was exempt from that stuff. It was like, no, they got me on that. They got me on the universe and on life and stuff like that. So it wasn't, I concluded life must have been designed.

It was now I'm doubting that position because no one ever gave me any evidence that life formed on its own. You just told me that was the case and scientists agree with this. That's what happened. You never gave me any evidence. So why did I believe that? And so started thinking about design and maybe I jumped the gun on concluding that life formed on its own. And then the other one, the other thing that started bothering me was, like, I'd been holding two beliefs that didn't go together at all for a long time. And one was, everything is completely pointless. It's ultimately, like, meaningless.

That's why it doesn't matter what you do to me? Like, like, who cares? Oh, no, you're going to go to it? So what? It doesn't matter. None of this matters. Your dog died. Who cares?

It's all, think back then, right? Oh, no, your dog died. Guess what? Every dog that was on the planet at that time is dead. So what? Everyone who remembered every dog that was alive on that planet a few years from now is going to be dead. What does what's the point? It doesn't matter, right? So my view back then you've got this giant universe. You've got like our little speck of the galaxy and there's a little speck of the galaxy. There's like a little piece of dust that's our sun. And then there's this little even smaller pathetic piece of dust going around. There's little blobs of cells on there thinking they're so important. How delusional are you? Nothing you do.

in the grand scheme of things matters even slightly. It doesn't. The universe is not changing at all based on anything you're doing. It's all pointless. So I held that and yet I'm this sort of super important greatest human being who's ever lived and I set the rules and like those don't go together. How am I the most important, most advanced human being in this completely meaningless, pointless world where nothing really matters and those don't go together. It's like pick one. If it's all just pointless and meaningless, so am I.

not important at all. And I'm not the greatest. What's the, what's the standard of me being the greatest? And on, by what standard? It doesn't make any sense. So like, I got to drop one. I got to drop one of those. They don't go together. And that finally, it finally hit me. And at the same time, I'm reading about Jesus. And I'm just, I'm just thinking, okay, okay, there is, in my worldview, there is no standard. So it makes no sense for me to think that I'm the greatest and the most important. It doesn't make any sense. If, however, that's wrong. And there is a greatest and most advanced, like, what are the odds that I'm in? If I don't to know what the standard is, how can I say, I'm the, I'm the highest thing on the standard.

Like, what am I the standard? Why would I think that I'm the standard? And I just started, okay, if this guy who may have risen from the dead, what's more likely that he's the standard and I'm the standard or that he's greater or that I'm greater? And I'm thinking, what am I the greatest? And just thinking about all these things and it finally hit me, right? It finally hit me like, I'm a guy sitting on a bunk. I can't stop drooling.

Like the not eating somehow just made me like nonstop drool. And it got to a point where I would just have a cup on the floor beside my bunk and I would just drool into it. Like I got sick of spitting. I would just drool into a cup on side of the bed. I got a rash all over me called shingles. But not eating for a long time. your immune system depletes and it reactivates the chickenpox virus in you and it's first it's around your waist then it's under your arms and stuff but it's like it feels just like poison ivy

it's it's all over you and stuff like that but I'm sitting there scratching myself drooling into a cup the the doctor was telling me hey as soon as your blood reads such and such we're going to start tube feeding we're going to stick a we're going to stick a tube in you we're going to make you eat and my lawyer told me that the psychiatrist wanted to send me to Miriam, which would have been my third mental hospital, and I'm sitting there thinking, I'm a guy who's in here for trying to murder my dad with a hammer because I think I'm so superior to everything else. I can't stop drooling. I'm scratching myself to death. I can't stand up without falling over and busting my head. I'm about to be sent permanently to a mental hospital where they're going to be tube feeding me.

How exactly am I the best person in the world just because I don't cry when something bad happens, right? So in a short period of time, I went from thinking that I'm the best person in the world to thinking I'm the most pathetic person in the world. And once you conclude, like, gosh, like who's worse? That's what I was actually thinking. Like, who's worse than me in this world? Like, there are people who are starving. there are people who are starving. At least they can think straight.

At least they're not drooling. Like, who's worse than me in the world? So I went to thinking that I'm the worst person in the world. And that put me in a little dilemma, not the Islamic dilemma, but it put me in a little dilemma. And it was just this. It was either this is what I am. Like, this is who I am.

All the stuff I've been trying to, like, purify myself. I'm in the pure state now. I've done it. I've done everything to get in this pure state. And this pure state is me on a bed, drooling with a rash all over me. heading to a mental hospital, that's like what I am. Either that's what I am, because that's what I, either like what I am is this thing, this pathetic, disgusting excuse of a human being, or there's someone out there who can help with this sort of thing.

Like, this is just the way I am and I need to get, and I'll just get used to it because this is the way I am, or there's someone who can fix this sort of thing. And when you start thinking like that, once you realize this is not me being more advanced than everyone else, I'm actually more screwed up than other people and I'm defective. I don't have some ability that everyone else lacks. I lack things that everyone else has and that makes me screwed up, not greater. Then it becomes, okay, I mean, this is either what I am or there's someone out there who can help this help with this sort of thing. When you start thinking like that, I think you're about that close to becoming a Christian because when you ask yourself, okay, who out of anyone else in history, who had the ability to take screwed up, messed up, messed up,

people and do something with them, you basically get a list of one. It ain't Muhammad. It ain't Muhammad. You get a list of Jesus. That's it. Jesus is the one who took people like demon-possessed, like lunatics and stuff like this. And hey, I can fix things for you. And so I had to say at that point, it was not, oh man, I'm convinced of Christianity right now. It was, if I pray and nothing happens, so what? Like, if I pray and nothing should. changes and this is what I am. Okay, so this is where I am. I'm not getting any worse. There's nothing I could say. There's nothing I can pray right now. And oh man, now I'm really bad off because I prayed and nothing happened. It was, okay, if I pray and nothing happens, then I'm in

the same spot. But if I pray and something changes, then, okay, let's see what happens. And so I bowed down on my bunk and I prayed and I said, God, I don't know if I'm going to believe in you tomorrow. But I believe in you right now. And if you can do anything with me, you are welcome to it. And so I prayed that. And then I did like the prayer of accepting Jesus that I read in these Bible studies and so on that they sent me. And then I sat up and everything looked different. Like the world looked like it had all changed colors. And like people like I've heard people saying, you know, I, one, don't, don't base, don't base your beliefs on feelings and stuff like that. I'm just saying this because this is, this is what I felt like. So I'm just telling

you my experience. But otherwise, don't, don't base your beliefs and things and decisions on feelings. But I sat up and, you know, people, I've heard people say they felt like a weight lifted off their backs and so on. I sat up and the way I felt right when I sat up was, I say, try to imagine if you're born and you were like tossed into a fighting pit and all you do is fight. you know of no other existence at all in your life, except just constant, like, bloodbath fighting and stuff like that. And that's your entire life. That's all you've ever experienced.

And then all of a sudden, it just stops. Wow. That's what it felt like. It just like, boom, it just stopped. And I was like, what, what's going on? And so, anyway, that's when I became a Christian. I was still pretty messed up, but I, okay, I'm going to be reading my Bible. so I started reading my Bible and it got to the point where because I mean keep in mind I was still

locked up for malicious wounding uh on my dad and so I had years to serve in prison but it got to the point where just me reading my Bible uh hanging out with Christians and stuff just a couple years later I'd be talking to someone I remember this guy Floyd walls I was walking I was walking through the dorm and Floyd he was sweeping the floor and he stops me he goes hey wood um yeah we were I was talking to some of the other guys and uh we're trying to figure out how someone like you could ever get locked up and so we're thinking maybe you're walking down the street with your girlfriend and maybe someone said something slick to her and you defended her beat him up and then got locked up maybe you heard him too bad we're thinking something like that i was just like that's when i was like you guys think

i'm a good guy because up to the i thought i was like scum of the world yeah and it didn't occur to me that everyone all of a sudden thought i was like the good guy after a couple years and so uh yeah went from Everyone's saying this guy needs to be locked up because this guy's got some serious problems to a couple years later. How could David Wood ever get locked up? It must be for defending someone. Wow.

And so, yeah. And did you ever reconcile with your dad? Yep. Yeah, I actually, yeah, I wrote him a nice long letter basically telling him my entire, like, mental history and stuff and everything I was thinking along the way

and stuff like that. And he came to see me right after that. and actually paroled to his house. Big a pardon? I paroled at his house. What was that like that? Oh, no. He was being reunited with him after.

Oh, no. I mean, he, it was cool. He didn't. It was okay. You're messed up. You're Christian now. You're better. Wow.

Is he still alive? No, he died. He died of a heart attack. About, I don't know, 15 years ago or so. David, thank you for all of the work that you've done to help Christians defend the faith against Islam and to help people in Muhammadism, as I awkwardly keep saying, yeah, abandon it. We really appreciate all the work that you've done.

Okay, as we wrap up here, where do people go to learn more about you, to watch your debates, to follow you? If you type in David Wood on YouTube, you'll probably find me and some of my critics, and it's always good to hear both. But right now, my main channel I've been posting on It's called Apologetics Roadshow. Why did you call that? I just thought it was a cool name.

Cool. That's all right. What's the one debate you would have people watch of yours if they only wanted to watch one? I mean, for purposes right now, I mean, I've had some debates I've loved over the years, but just pick one of the debates on the Islamic Dilemma. Just type in David Wood, Islamic Dilemma, and watch one of those debates. It's kind of, it might not be like my favorite as far as, like,

like my favorite debate, but I think they're the most relevant right now as far as what's going on. Yeah. All right. Go bless. Thanks. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libson ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libson ads. Email Bob at Libson.com to learn more. That's B-O-B-O-B. at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.